Police body worn camera footage shows LVMPD Officer Cordell Hendrex in Mandalay Bay Hotel stairwell

Body worn camera (BWC) video footage from Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department K-9 Sgt. Joshua Bitsko and K-9 Officer Dave Newton recorded on the night of October 1, 2017 shows that Officer Cordell Hendrex was with Officer Elif Varsin in the 31^st floor stairwell at the Mandalay Bay Hotel when other officers arrived.

The video footage strongly contradicts a Mandalay Bay security manager’s account that Hendrex was with him on the 32^nd floor as he stated during a recorded interview with the FBI and the LVMPD.

The security manager said that Hendrex had exited the elevator on the 32^ndfloor with him during the time Paddock was firing into the concert venue and that he and Hendrex remained on the floor after the gunfire stopped and covered Paddock’s suite to make sure nobody exited the room.

The video footage verifies only that Hendrex was in the stairwell as other officers started to arrive about thirty minutes after the last shots were fired. Hendrex’s report indicates that he was on the 31^stfloor and never on the 32^nd floor as stated by the security manager.

As reported in several stories by the Baltimore Post ExaminerHendrex took no action to stop, distract or disrupt Paddock’s gunfire. Hendrex stated in his report that he, Officer Varsin and his contingent of three armed Mandalay Bay security managers retreated in the hallway of the 31^stfloor as the gunfire was emanating from the 32^nd floor.

Hendrex stated that he was terrified, froze in the hallway for how long he couldn’t say and then called in to his dispatch and told them that the gunfire was coming from one floor above him. He said he once again hesitated and did not know what to do next, as the gunfire continued. Only after the gunfire stopped did he and his group enter the 31^stfloor stairwell.

Officer Elif Varsin’s body worn camera footage has not been released.

According to Hendrex’s report, Varsin turned her BWC on while in the security office before responding to the 31^stfloor. Hendrex stated he did not turn his BWC on until he was in the stairwell. Hendrex’s BWC footage has also not been released.

Still photographs obtained from Bitsko’s and Newton’s BWC footage shows Hendrex and Varsin in the stairwell as those officers and others arrived. It also shows Hendrex and Varsin exiting from the stairwell into the 32^ndfloor hallway after Paddock’s suite was breached.

In addition to Officer Varsin’s unedited BWC footage, the Mandalay Bay elevator video surveillance camera footage should also be released as that will also show who exited on the 31^stfloor and the 32^ndfloor.

Regardless of which floor Hendrex was on he still failed to take any action to confront Paddock while both civilians and police were being fired upon at the Route 91 Music Festival.

If Hendrex was on the 31^st floor the entire time, then who was with the security manager on the 32^nd floor during the gunfire and who if anyone was maintaining a visual on 32-135? The manager told the FBI and the police, “From the time that me and Hendrex were up there nobody had left the room. That door never opened.”

Doug Poppa

Doug authored over 135 articles on the October 1, 2017, Las Vegas Massacre, more than any other single journalist in the country. He investigates stories on corruption, law enforcement, and crime. Doug is a US Army Military Police Veteran, former police officer, deputy sheriff, and criminal investigator. Doug spent 20 years in the hotel/casino industry as an investigator and then as Director of Security and Surveillance. He also spent a short time with the US Dept. of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration. In 1986 Doug was awarded Criminal Investigator of the Year by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia for his undercover work in narcotics enforcement. In 1991 and 1992 Doug testified in court that a sheriff’s office official and the county prosecutor withheld exculpatory evidence during the 1988 trial of a man accused of the attempted murder of his wife. Doug’s testimony led to a judge’s decision to order the release of the man from prison in 1992 and awarded him a new trial, in which he was later acquitted. As a result of Doug breaking the police “blue wall of silence,” he was fired by the county sheriff. His story was featured on Inside Edition, Current Affair and CBS News’ “Street Stories with Ed Bradley”. In 1992 after losing his job, at the request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Doug infiltrated a group of men who were plotting the kidnapping of a Dupont fortune heir and his wife. Doug has been a guest on national television and radio programs speaking on the stories he now writes as an investigative journalist. Catch Doug’s Podcast: @dougpoppa1