SAN DIEGO — A San Diego taco shop owner and his wife were staying in a hotel room right below the Las Vegas suite where gunman Stephen Paddock fired shots at a country music festival Sunday night, according to KSWB.
It was only after the deadly shooting that Albert Garzon and his wife Jessica discovered they had not only been staying in the Mandalay Bay hotel room directly below the shooter but that they’d annoyed him just hours before the concert.
“Just got back to our room and look at that, that’s the room that he was shooting out of, that’s the curtain that’s coming out of the guy’s room. He was right above us, shooting down on the concert,” said Albert, showing cell phone video he recorded after guests were allowed to return to the hotel.
He says it was then that he realized it was the shooter who had complained to hotel security about noise coming from his room just hours before the concert.
“We’re all playing the music and then security came up to our room and said, ‘hey, you have a guest right above you that’s complaining that you’re being too loud.’ And out of respect, I didn’t think twice about it. I just said, ‘yeah no problem, we’ll turn the music down.’ And then probably another half an hour later, another group of security guys came up and said, ‘hey bud, this is your second time, you have a guest above you who’s complaining again, so we got to ask you to turn it down. The third time we come, then your guests are going to have to leave. Obviously, you and your wife can stay.’ None of us would have ever thought that there was that guy directly right above us,” said Albert.
Following that encounter, the group headed down to the concert. Once there, the taco shop owner had what he describes as a bad feeling and left the music festival, leaving his wife and friends. He was making his way to the 31st floor when the shots rang out from the 32nd floor.
“I just started sweating super bad, I wanted to get away and like I said, I didn’t try to make a scene about it. I said, ‘hey guys, I’m going to go back to the room. As I’m leaving the hotel, my wife is calling me screaming saying they’re being shot at, they don’t know how many, people are just getting dropped left and right by her and my friend gets on the phone and says, ‘don’t worry, I got the wives, don’t worry about them’ and they’re ducking and he’s pushing them on the ground and in the meantime I’m freaking out,” said Garzon.
Garzon said the entire strip was locked down immediately and he couldn’t get back to his wife and friends until the next day, at least 14 hours later.
