As tourists and employees scattered, Lampert dropped his hot dog and hunkered down.

Moving slowly amid the stampede, one man in a cream-colored trench coat walked by clutching a gun.

Lampert said he made eye contact with the man as a magazine dropped out of the Springfield XD 9mm semiautomatic handgun.

The man said, "I'm going to (expletive) kill you," Lampert recalled.

Drawing on military training and some liquid courage, the 24-year-old university student and North Dakota National Guard staff sergeant jumped to his feet and grabbed the man.

The gun fell to the ground, and Lampert put the gunman in a chokehold.

Three more men helped subdue the gunman until security and police arrived.

Four people had been shot by Steven Francis Zegrean, Las Vegas police said.

Lampert was hailed as a hero.

The Iraq war veteran said he did what anyone else would have done.

"I'm not a hero," he said. "I was drunk."

Las Vegas police detectives were trying on Friday to determine what led Zegrean to snap.

Police know Zegrean was emotionally distraught when he entered the hotel about 12:43 a.m. from the pedestrian bridge that crosses Las Vegas Boulevard South from the MGM Grand.

Police said he might have recently lost a job.

Financial troubles or relationship problems might have influenced him, police said.

"I was trying to create a conflict," Zegrean, 51, told investigators during an interview, a police source said.

MONDAY

College drops

part of its name

The College of Southern Nevada dropped the "community" part of its name, but dozens of signs still read "CCSN" instead of "CSN," and many students are still oblivious to the change.

The college will start rolling out a television and radio ad campaign about the new name and the college's new logo, which is largely unchanged. Some of the spots stress that the college's mission as a community college will remain the same.

TUESDAY

Conservation area

damaged by fire

A fire charred nearly 400 acres near Bonnie Springs in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, Bureau of Land Management officials said.

The human-caused fire, which began Monday night, prompted authorities to close Route 159, the canyon's 13-mile scenic loop and the Red Rock visitors center.

No structures were threatened, and no injuries were reported.

Officials were uncertain exactly how the fire began.

WEDNESDAY

Man shot to death

in home invasion

A man was fatally shot during a home invasion near Silverado Ranch Boulevard and Spencer Street, police said.

Las Vegas police were called to the house on the 1800 block of Pyle Avenue about 4 a.m. and found the man dead from a gunshot wound.

Police said two or three men broke into the home and shot the man.

A friend of the victim identified the dead man as 19-year-old David Cardenas.

THURSDAY

Defendant testifies

in corruption trial

On the witness stand, real estate consultant Donald Davidson recalled the day in 2005 when federal agents visited him armed with a recording of what they claimed was a phone conversation between former Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny and her father.

"They played the tape for me," Davidson explained to jurors during his corruption trial.

"I remember her saying she was going to be coming into a lot of money."

Davidson added that Kenny then said, "I have to go see Don Davidson."

The defense team later learned the tape was manufactured by the government and Kenny, who signed a plea deal and began cooperating with the prosecution in 2003.

When asked what he said to the FBI agents who had played him the tape, Davidson responded emphatically that he told them: "I had nothing to do with giving her money."

The government conceded it had concocted and played the tape with hopes Davidson would confess.

FRIDAY

Galardi begins serving sentence

Michael Galardi surrendered at the federal prison camp in Littleton, Colo., to begin serving his 30-month sentence.

Galardi, 45, who paid off politicians to further the interests of his strip clubs in Las Vegas and San Diego, received a 30-month term in the Las Vegas corruption case and a concurrent 15-month term in the San Diego case.

COMPILED BY MICHAEL SQUIRES

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