LAS VEGAS (AP) – People who are healing and some are still fighting gathered Friday to remember those who died and injured in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history four years ago on the Las Vegas Strip became.
“I was wounded. Those physical wounds have healed, ”said Dee Ann Hyatt, whose daughter was also wounded and whose brother died in the October 1, 2017 shooting. “But the permanent scars for our family remain.”
Hyatt spoke to hundreds of people during a sunrise ceremony at the Clark County Government Center in Las Vegas.
She remembered her murdered brother Kurt von Tillow, a Northern California trucker, in front of an outdoor amphitheater screen showing photos of the dead. 58 people were killed that night and two more died later. More than 850 were injured.
“We’re witnessing the effects of everything that happened that night four years later,” said Hyatt. “People thrive and people struggle to cope with physical and mental pain, and our lives have changed forever.”
The event was the first of several scheduled Fridays in Las Vegas and elsewhere, including a livestream to Ventura County, California hosted by a support group called So Cal Route 91 Heals. The group also planned an afternoon ceremony in a park in Thousand Oaks.
Tennille Pereira, director of the Vegas Strong Resiliency Center, a Las Vegas program to help those affected by the shooting, found that approximately 60% of tickets sold to the fateful concert were purchased by California residents.
The names of the dead will be read out in a community healing garden in downtown Las Vegas from 10:05 p.m., the time shooting begins.
Pereira also chairs a Clark County committee that is developing plans for a permanent memorial. She said the fifth anniversary next year could include a dedication of the memorial on a corner of the former concert hall across Las Vegas Boulevard from the Mandalay Bay Resort. There, the shooter spent several days assembling an arsenal of assault rifles before breaking out the windows of his suite on the 32nd floor and unleashing a slaughter.
Jill Winter of Nashville, Tennessee recalls the nearly 10-minute barrage of rapid-fire shots into the open air concert audience.
Like many around her, Winter first thought it was fireworks. Then people fell dead and wounded. Winter ducked into cover until SWAT officers arrived and told her to flee. She remembers screaming, “Let him stop! Let him stop! “
Winter, now 49, advises others she calls “the router family” who witnessed the fatal night at the Route 91 Harvest Festival. “Router” sounds better than “Survivor,” she explained.
“There’s a lot of healing going on,” she said in a phone interview this week. “There were 22,000 of us. That doesn’t even include other people who have been affected … first responders, hospital workers, average citizens driving down the strip. All these people and all these different stories. “
Gunman Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old retired postal worker, accountant, and real estate investor who became a high-stakes casino video poker player, killed himself before police reached him. Local and state investigators concluded that he had meticulously planned the attack and, apparently, was aiming for notoriety, but they said they couldn’t identify a clear motive.
Authorities such as the police, elected and government officials and those associated with the resilience center are now refusing to use his name.
MGM Resorts International, owner of the hotel and concert venue, is donating 2 acres to the memorial – right on the Strip at a location near a church where people sought refuge and medical assistance during the shooting.
The company and its insurers nearly completed paying $ 800 million to more than 4,000 plaintiffs in an out-of-court settlement reached a year ago that prevented negligence proceedings in multiple states. The company has not assumed any liability.
“It’s good for the community and victims that the case is resolved,” said Robert Eglet, a Las Vegas attorney who spent a year arranging the settlement, Thursday. “And it was right for MGM.”
Pereira said this week that she felt a softening of emotions around the anniversary.
“Where the community is is different. Perhaps it is because we have just got this (coronavirus) pandemic behind us and are feeling a normal pace again, ”said Pereira.
“We still remember, we still respect, we still honor. But it’s not raw as it was and harrowing. It just feels more hopeful and peaceful. “
This was the first year since filming that Winter was not in Las Vegas to celebrate the anniversary. She said she would meet with other “routers” at a friend’s restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee, on Friday.
“It’s always emotional. But it’s also really heartwarming, ”she said. “The fact that we came together and didn’t let evil win is so amazing.”
Hyatt said at the memorial that she had taught for four years that some things cannot be fixed.
“You can only be there for one another,” she says. “Listen, cry, hug, love and support one another. You just have to be patient and loving and caring with everyone you meet because you don’t know what they are going through. “
