Stand Strong, Las Vegas

On the night of October 1, 2017, a gunman unleashed the equivalent of machine gun fire into a crowd of 22,000 people who were gathered on the Las Vegas Strip for a country music festival. For 10 minutes, he fired in bursts. At the time of this post, 58 people are dead and nearly 500 injured. Some remain in critical condition.

The gunman, Stephen Paddock, used his suite on the 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay as a sniper’s perch to carry out this mass murder. He killed himself before Metro’s SWAT team blew the door open. His motives are still unknown. Details continue to emerge at each new press conference.

In the aftermath, the city remains in shock.

Like many people in Las Vegas, I woke up on Monday to messages from friends and family who wanted to know if I was O.K. Their messages sent me to the television, and from that point on, everything has felt very weird.

The magnitude of this crime is hard to get your mind around. I’m still struggling.

Many people want to know what they can do. The blood banks currently are stocked due to an overwhelming turnout of donors (although it's worth noting that United Blood Services has pointed out that blood will be an ongoing need). Ditto for donations of water and food to the Red Cross and the assistance center set up at the Convention Center, but you can visit Clark County's Emergency Information Page to find out where else you can donate and volunteer. Vegas Seven's page also has a listing of needs--Metro's Enterprise Area's Command is "In needs of lots of coffee," for instance.  You can donate to the GoFundMe that Commission Chair Steve Sisolack and Sheriff Joe Lombardo started. Its initial goal was to raise a few hundred thousand dollars for the victims and their families, and it's now close to $10 million dollars. That’s not counting the $3 million that MGM Resorts has pledged.

Because I, too, like to be helpful, I’m going to suggest two things everyone can do that are free and can be done from the comfort of your home.

#1 - Don’t contribute to the spread of fake news and conspiracy theories.

By early afternoon on Monday, I had to go for a walk to take a break from the news. While I was walking, I overhead a woman on the phone telling someone she was sure the shooting was some kind of government conspiracy. I’ve seen stories online insisting there was more than one shooter. I even heard conjecture about whether or not the gunman was actually dead, but that was before the crime scene photos were leaked. 

Please, don’t spread these stories.

I don’t personally know the people who are investigating this heinous crime, but I know the kind of people they are because I worked for Metro for 22 years. I know every piece of evidence is being carefully collected and cataloged. I can’t even imagine how long the crime scene analysts must have worked on the concert grounds. It’s mind boggling to think of the size of the scene and how many locations were involved. The pictures I saw of the concert grounds reminded me of a debris field from an airplane crash, although not as large and with one notable exception: instead of body pieces, there were whole bodies littering the grounds. It’s incomprehensible.

The authorities are working as fast as they can to piece this all together. In the meantime, don’t spread disinformation. Make sure you’re posting from a credible news source. Better yet, take a break from social media and the news--it’s too easy to get sucked into the coverage of this story and become overwhelmed.

#2 - Be a little extra kind.

While this might seem like a suggestion that applies pretty much always, it’s particularly relevant in Las Vegas right now. We’re all in this one together, folks. This tragedy has touched an immense number of people in the valley and beyond. For all you know, that less-than-efficient grocery store clerk you got today might have a loved one in critical condition. Or worse.

Anyone on the Strip on Sunday at the time of the shooting was affected, even those who weren’t at the concert.

One of my husband’s friends was at the Bellagio on Sunday night when the first wave of 40 or 50 people fleeing the massacre burst into the casino. A second wave hit, and the Bellagio prepared to put the property on lock-down, but this man wasn’t having any of that. He’d heard the shooter had a machine gun, and he had no intention of being herded into a ballroom, which was in the process of happening. People thought the shooter (or shooters--no one knew) was on foot and headed in their direction. “I wasn’t going to be a fish in a barrel,” he said, and he and his friends started looking for ways out of the hotel.

He and his pals wound up searching for an exit through employee-only areas, surprising (and scaring) groups of employees they encountered in the process. Finally finding an exit, he and some of his friends made their way to the Rio, where he called someone to come get him. Some other members of his group were separated in the scramble to get out, and those folks spent the night hiding in a pool-side cabana at Caesars Palace.

Impressively, he still made it to work on Monday morning.

You’ve probably seen the video of the man at the concert who was drinking his beer and flipping off the shooter. Some people think he must be a local, since his defiance certainly seems to sum up how a lot of people feel. I just hope he made it out OK.

Las Vegas, keep standing strong. 

In the immortal words of Chumbawamba:

I get knocked down, but I get up again 
You are never gonna keep me down 

Nothing will keep our city down, not even this heinous attack.

Keep that middle finger attitude, my friends.

#VegasStrong

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I'm not sure who to credit for this graphic. If anyone knows the original source, please leave it in the comments.

You can visit these pages for for more information and resources:

VegasStrong on Facebook 

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police - Victim and Family Assistance Resources