Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo is not telling the truth about the gunshots fired by his SWAT unit after breaching the hotel door of accused shooter Stephen Paddock, according to a high-ranking insider from the Clark County District Attorney’s Office.
Lombardo for weeks, along with FBI officials, claimed no shots were fired and Paddock killed himself. On Monday, Lombardo admitted a gun was fired by Las Vegas Metro after entering Paddock’s room, essentially backing True Pundit’s original story ten days ago that detailed shot(s) were indeed fired by SWAT.
While backtracking, Lombardo called the gunshot an “accident,” however.
“He’s a liar,” the DA source said of Lombardo. “This is one of the premier SWAT units in the United States. Other police departments pay to train with them here (in Las Vegas). They do not accidentally fire weapons. That is pure fiction.”
If a SWAT officer fired his weapon in Paddock’s hotel room it was to subdue or kill Paddock, the DA insider said.
Lombardo changed his story a week after True Pundit, On Oct. 24th, published audio from Las Vegas Metro SWAT. The audio provided a raw and chilling feed from Las Vegas Metro SWAT and confirmed officers did engage in gunfire after breaching Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock’s hotel suite, directly contradicting FBI and police claims that Paddock killed himself.
According to the audio, Paddock was likely gunned down by LVMPD’s elite “Zebra Unit” SWAT force. A SWAT officer code named “Zebra20” and apparent leader of the team’s strike force who led the raid on Paddock’s Mandalay Bay suite reported on police radio that one member of his team did open fire inside Paddock’s room.
“We have one SWAT officer that did fire,” the SWAT strike force team leader said, according to the audio transcript.
Zebra20 then reported no other people were injured during the breach, alluding Paddock was the sole casualty.
“We just have one suspect down at this point in time,” he said.
The events which unfolded during the Oct. 1 massacre per LVMPD’s Zebra Unit SWAT force directly contradict the official narrative delivered since the shooting by Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo and the FBI’s Aaron Rouse who heads the Bureau’s Las Vegas field office.
Previously the DA insider called Lombardo a puppet of the FBI days after the Mandalay Bay massacre. That label seems to have proven somewhat prophetic now weeks after the tragedy.
The DA insider said Rouse reports directly to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe who is running point on the Las Vegas shooting probe. Rouse, who for years worked under McCabe in the Bureau’s Counterintelligence Division in D.C., was appointed to the Las Vegas post by ex-FBI director James Comey in 2016.
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