re: Was Paddock a magician?

There's no way they could have surrounded and locked down that massive hotel in such a short time frame. You're talking about an event that was pure chaos. Now he may have had some escape plan in mind, but I think he realized he was trapped fairly quickly. He may have figured that he had x amount of time before he was located, and planned on escaping after a certain amount of time had elapsed. However, if he was counting on the cops being there in 20 Minutes and the security guard shows up in 5, then he had to alter his plans.