‘Very surreal’: Va. man recounts stay in gunman’s hotel during Las Vegas shooting

WASHINGTON — Around the same time that Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock began firing shots from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay on Oct. 1, a Northern Virginia man was at the hotel’s front desk checking in.
John Gauchat, of Gainesville, Virginia, was one of thousands in Las Vegas that day ahead of the NetApp Insight conference. He checked in around 10 p.m. and was assigned a room on the 31st floor, one floor below Paddock. …

Mandalay Bay hotel guest captures video of police responding to Las Vegas mass shooting

Published on Oct 18, 2017

Gauchat tried twice to get on an empty elevator, only to be kicked off by police officers and what appeared to him to be hotel security. He took the third elevator that arrived to the 31st floor, exiting with a woman he did not know, but who was attending the same convention.
Once out of the elevator, Gauchat spotted something alarming: police officers using recessed doorways as cover to move through a hallway.
“I’m former military; I was in the Army in the ’90s, and I recognized what they were doing. They were certainly in tactical formation moving down, trying to get to the end of the hallway,” he said. …
Then, in a different hallway, as he unlocked the door to his room, he saw another security team on the move and took a short video. …
Gauchat’s room did not overlook the shooting scene — which he’s thankful for — but instead provided a view of what appeared to become a staging area for dozens and dozens of emergency vehicles. He could also see police helicopters shining spotlights on the roofs of buildings.
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