The Vegas shooting story is getting more complicated.
What is going on with the Las Vegas attack investigation? At this point, it’s getting harder to know the truth.
The first timeline for the attack given by police goes like this:
10:05pm - Stephen Paddock begins firing from his hotel room on the 32nd floor.
10:15pm - Paddock stops shooting.
10:17pm - Police arrive on the 32nd floor and encounter security guard Jesus Campos who had been shot, through the door, by Paddock.
Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo explained last Wednesday that Paddock stopped firing when he saw that the security guard was at his door because he:
Observed the security guard, and he was in fear that he was about to be breached, so he was doing everything possible to figure out how to escape at that point.
Yesterday, all that changed in a dramatic reversal. The new timeline released by police says the security guard encountered Paddock before the mass shooting even began. Jesus Campos arrived at Paddocks room at 9:59pm because he heard a “drilling” sound coming from inside. Paddock then shot him through the door, then broke out the windows and commenced firing at 10:05pm.
The security guard obviously showed up in the middle of Paddock’s preparations and forced his timeline forward ahead of schedule. Police say Paddock fired 200 rounds through the door and into the hallway trying to take out the security guard. That’s quite a bit of sustained fire that probably lasted around 5 minutes.
So, here’s a few questions. Did the security guard not radio for backup during this 5 minutes of hell? Ask anyone that’s ever been in a firefight. Five minutes is an eternity. If someone has a little too much to drink in a hotel casino, you’ll instantly see a platoon of security guards there to respond. But in this case, not a single person responded. No one would officially arrive in response for another 18 minutes.
Sheriff Lombardo has also changed the date that Paddock checked into the hotel. Originally it was stated that he arrived on the 28th, but now he’s saying that they now believe he arrived on the 25th. How can you not know the date he checked in? There are hundreds of cameras, front desk records and credit card charges. Checking just one of those three sources would tell you when he arrived.
What’s going on in Las Vegas? What is the truth?
Rapist gets joint custody with his victim.
The girls were giddy with excitement when the car pulled up.
It was an older boy one of their friends knew.
He asked if they wanted to go for a ride. The three girls jumped into the car.
They thought they were going to McDonald’s.
Their excitement turned to fear as they drove past the golden arches and up to a vacant house.
One of the girls, 12, was viciously raped. A month later, the child discovered she was pregnant with her attacker’s baby.
Despite pressure to abort or put her child up for adoption, the victim kept her child. She dropped out of school, went to live with relatives, and worked jobs to try and support her family.
Eight years later, the victim is being forced to face her rapist once again, this time at the state’s request.
This week, the state of Michigan notified the attacker that, as the biological father, he had joint legal custody, visitation privileges, and must start paying child support. As shocking as this sounds, this is routinely done by the prosecutor’s office when someone makes an application for state assistance.
The victim told the Detriot News that, “I think this is all crazy. I was receiving about $260 a month in food stamps for me and my son and health insurance for him. I guess they were trying to see how to get some of the money back.”
This is not a family, it’s a felony.
And it’s a twisted situation that is surprisingly not that rare in America.
There are 15 states in the U.S. that have no law in place to terminate a rapist's parental rights and of all 50 states, fewer than half have laws that allow the termination of parental rights to rapists without a conviction.
Those estimates put thousands of women at risk of a lifetime tethered to their rapists because they chose to keep their child. Because these brave women understood the circumstances of their child’s conception did not determine its worth.
Those women shouldn’t be forced to relive their nightmares over again. They should be protected and celebrated for turning a traumatic event into a blessing.
An epidemic rages behind the Weinstein case.
Harvey Weinstein has been thanked at the Oscars more than God.
Looks like Weinstein’s number of thank yous may take a serious hit now that he’s been fired from his own company for decades of sexually harassing numerous women.
Then again, this is an industry where people still fall over themselves to be in a Woody Allen film and never skip the chance to praise Roman Polanski.
It wouldn’t shock me if Harvey Weinstein wins an Oscar when he makes a comeback in a few years.
Yesterday, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Kate Winslet and Judi Dench spoke out condemning Weinstein. But the men of Hollywood seem to be keeping their mouths shut for some reason. In fact, Sharon Waxman revealed that in 2004 she was working on a similar report for The New York Times about Weinstein sexually harassing women, but she says Matt Damon and Russell Crowe called her to vouch for Weinstein. The Times dropped the 2004 story after pressure from Weinstein. His company was a big advertiser for the newspaper.
Weinstein is a creep and he’ll have to deal with the consequences of his gross behavior. But let’s not kid ourselves. Sexual harassment goes on in every industry.
This story reveals so much about America’s politics and hypocrisies. While it’s fun to give Hollywood a taste of their own medicine for a change, we shouldn’t miss this opportunity to have a national dialogue about the objectification of women in our culture and what helps fuel this problem.
You can’t have a national epidemic of male addiction to pornography and expect sexual harassment to decrease. It used to be considered sleazy to go to an X-rated movie theater. Now our kids are growing up with an X-rated theater on the phone in their back pocket. You think it’s bad now. Wait until the 24/7 porn generation become the bosses at work.
Combatting our porn epidemic is a cause that men and women, liberal and conservative, could work on together. It may sound old-fashioned and prudish to some, but if we don’t think this is affecting us, we’re delusional.
