Five Years Since the Route 91 Massacre No One Knows a Damn Thing

[Stevicus]

Five Years Since the Route 91 Massacre No One Knows a Damn Thing (msn.com)

I was not aware that they changed the name of the Las Vegas Massacre to the "Route 91 Massacre."

Apparently, there's been some disagreement and consternation regarding what to call the memorial, as well as the number of victims. The original number of victims was 58, but there were two women who were shot on that day but died years later.

Yet five years since the massacre at Route 91, little else has, when it comes to mass shootings in the U.S. The suspect, a 64-year-old white man who took his own life by the time authorities entered his room, was identified, yet no motive was ever determined. A ban on bump stocks, the device the shooter used to transform his weapons from semi-automatic to automatic, was enacted via executive order by President Trump in 2018, but seemingly did little to curb future mass shootings using assault rifles. And the survivors, traumatized and struggling to heal — an estimated 22,000 people attended the festival’s third day — find it hard to agree upon anything. Even the official death toll is a point of fierce debate.

According to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, 60 people died as a result of the shooting — a number that includes two women who were shot on Oct. 1, 2017, but died years after the incident. To many survivors, though, the tally of the dead is a non-negotiable 58, a number they’ve had tattooed on their bodies and wear proudly on T-shirts. It’s a number that’s come to symbolize strength, solidarity, and identity. In an email to the Clark County planning committee overseeing a memorial to be built for the victims, Dawn Wright, a survivor of the shooting, pleaded that the tally remain at 58. “I have heard the #58 is changing to 60,” she wrote. “Those 58 did not have final goodbyes, a last kiss, holidays, or birthdays. Please keep the #58 as it represents so much more than the lives lost. It’s a reminder to all survivors when we see that #58, our angels are with us.”

“58 is the number of people we lost that night and that fact will never change,” wrote survivor Elizabeth West in another email. “We lost 58 + 2 ‘because’ of that night.”

The concept of a Route 91 memorial has been equally divisive. One — the Las Vegas Community Healing Garden — has already been built by local businesses and includes 58 trees, a centerpiece “tree of life” donated by the magician duo Siegfried & Roy, and a remembrance wall. It exists about six miles north of the shooting site, off a portion of the Strip known for tattoo parlors and the pawn shop featured on the reality show Pawn Stars.

The official memorial, to be constructed on the northeast corner of the actual festival grounds by the Clark County government, is still in the planning stages. Its name — the “1 October Memorial” — is a sore subject among survivors who largely refer to the massacre as “Route 91.” “Calling it the 1 October Memorial does not relate the tragedy, devastation, and the people who were affected,” wrote Marianne Crane, a California resident, in an email to the committee. “1 October is how law enforcement refers to that tragedy, not us.”

In 2019, a portion of the original Route 91 festival site — essentially a 15-acre parking lot used for concerts called “Las Vegas Village” — was converted back into a parking lot for the nearby Allegiant Stadium, against the wishes of some survivors. A basketball practice facility is also being planned on the site. “The concert grounds are sacred grounds,” Wright objected in her email to the memorial planning committee. “I pled [sic] with you to not allow a parking structure be placed where 58 people lost their lives.”

Not much more has been learned about this shooting since the initial reports almost five years ago. They still don't what the motive was, although the shooter did have a rather strange history. (Stephen Paddock - Wikipedia)

I recall that when the story of the shooting first broke, there were reports that ISIS had claimed responsibility, that the shooter was one of their "soldiers," but the authorities said they found no evidence that ISIS was behind it. However, the Wiki article states that Paddock had traveled to the Middle East in the last year of his life, but it didn't elaborate on why he went to the Middle East or whether he had any contacts over there.

This incident still remains as the deadliest mass shooting event by a lone shooter in U.S. history.

The article goes into detail about many of the survivors' stories and how they've fared in the aftermath. It mentions legislative action taken in Nevada, though the incident has also polarized those who are either pro-gun control or not. Apparently, some survivors see this as a reason for buying even more guns.

Sandra Jauregui, a Nevada state assemblywoman whose district is located in the Vegas metro area, was also at the Route 91 Harvest festival. Jauregui attended with her then-husband, but in the weeks following the shooting, each strengthened their opposing views on gun reform: Jauregui threw herself into lobbying for gun-safety laws in her state, while he wanted to buy more guns. They divorced this year. For some, like her husband, Route 91 “further cemented people’s belief in the right to bear arms and carry them everywhere,” Jauregui says.

Jauregui has sponsored two state bills addressing gun safety. But pushback from Republicans has been unrelenting. She’s amazed that despite an epidemic of mass shootings in the U.S. like Columbine and Sandy Hook, opposition to meaningful gun reform continues.

“We’re going on a quarter of a century [since Columbine] and we haven’t been able to get mass shootings and gun violence under control. If Sandy Hook and Parkland and Route 91 couldn’t do it, what’s it going to take?” she says. “But the reality is I’m going to continue my fight on gun violence.”

Since Route 91, Nevada has passed several gun-violence bills (one is a red-flag law that, among other things, seizes guns from high-risk individuals; another, banning “ghost guns,” is currently being challenged in the state’s Supreme Court), but by and large, the massacre has not produced any sort of sustained collective action or advocacy on gun violence like after Parkland and Newtown. There are a few possible reasons, including the fact that the vast majority of fans were visiting from out of town for the weekend, making any geographic or community-based coalition nearly impossible to organize. Another key difference: Route 91 was the rare American mass shooting that directly involved and impacted a variety of multimillion-dollar industries (e.g., Las Vegas tourism, country music) eager for their enterprises to avoid becoming defined by an event of such unimaginable violence.

There have also been some lawsuits in the aftermath, and the official police investigation seemed to leave more questions than answers.

IN THE FIVE years since the massacre, settlements have been reached in a pair of high-profile lawsuits. In 2020, MGM Resorts — which owns Mandalay Bay and the Route 91 site — announced an $800 million settlement with victims of the shooting. Most everyone accepted their small piece of the payout, but one man, Roger Allen Kenis, turned down the money. In a quixotic lawsuit against MGM in which he’s representing himself, Kenis alleges a pattern of previous security failures at MGM as well as a series of conflicts of interest and corruption between the state’s judicial system and the corporate resort chain. After going all the way to Nevada’s Supreme Court, the case has been referred to the state’s appellate court and is awaiting ruling.

In another settlement, this one involving local authorities, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department was ordered to pay the Las Vegas Review-Journal a quarter-million dollars after being sued by the newspaper over its lack of transparency during the investigation. When Rolling Stone reached out to the police department for an update on the case, officials referred us to a 187-page report released 10 months after the shooting that failed to determine a motive. (The head of the department was Sheriff Joe Lombardo, currently running as the Trump-endorsed Republican in the state’s upcoming gubernatorial race. Lombardo may repeal several gun-violence-prevention measures Jauregui backs if elected.)

The 2018 report found that the gunman conducted internet searches for crowded beaches, various open-air venues, and Boston’s Fenway Park, prior to the Route 91 shooting. It also noted that in August 2017 he booked a room overlooking Chicago’s Grant Park during Lollapalooza. About two weeks before his attack on Route 91, he scoped out another Las Vegas festival, Life Is Beautiful, checking into three different condominiums at the Ogden, a downtown Vegas building overlooking the festival site. His stay at the Ogden actually overlapped with his reservation at Mandalay Bay, where he had adjoining suites.

The report read, “Whether he used the Life Is Beautiful music festival as a rehearsal or not, we will never know. What we do know is the actions and behaviors displayed by [the gunman] at the Ogden were consistent with those displayed at Mandalay Bay.”

While checked into the two Las Vegas properties, the shooter also spent time at his home in Mesquite, Nevada, located more than an hour east of Las Vegas, and traveled once to Phoenix — to buy ammunition, police later found out. After the massacre, investigators recovered 1,057 shell casings in the adjoining Mandalay Bay hotel rooms.

The report closed, leaving unanswered questions that continue to haunt survivors, many still desperate to heal.

The investigation concluded that he acted alone, that he was not affiliated with any hate group, terrorist group, or ideology. They found no evidence of a second shooter or anyone else who might have been involved. They were unable to discern any motive whatsoever.

The shooter was relatively well off. He had millions in assets, multiple properties, he took many cruises all over the world.

They said he scoped out other similar music festivals in the weeks prior, so it seems he was targeting music festivals for whatever reason.

One might wonder what caused this, what was going through his mind. But then one might also ask, does it even matter? Would knowing the reason help the healing process for the survivors? Does it help society to know, in the sense that it can provide useful information to help prevent such things?

Thoughts?

 

[Heyo]

Five Years Since the Route 91 Massacre No One Knows a Damn Thing (msn.com)

I was not aware that they changed the name of the Las Vegas Massacre to the "Route 91 Massacre."

Apparently, there's been some disagreement and consternation regarding what to call the memorial, as well as the number of victims. The original number of victims was 58, but there were two women who were shot on that day but died years later.



Not much more has been learned about this shooting since the initial reports almost five years ago. They still don't what the motive was, although the shooter did have a rather strange history. (Stephen Paddock - Wikipedia)

I recall that when the story of the shooting first broke, there were reports that ISIS had claimed responsibility, that the shooter was one of their "soldiers," but the authorities said they found no evidence that ISIS was behind it. However, the Wiki article states that Paddock had traveled to the Middle East in the last year of his life, but it didn't elaborate on why he went to the Middle East or whether he had any contacts over there.

This incident still remains as the deadliest mass shooting event by a lone shooter in U.S. history.

The article goes into detail about many of the survivors' stories and how they've fared in the aftermath. It mentions legislative action taken in Nevada, though the incident has also polarized those who are either pro-gun control or not. Apparently, some survivors see this as a reason for buying even more guns.



There have also been some lawsuits in the aftermath, and the official police investigation seemed to leave more questions than answers.



The investigation concluded that he acted alone, that he was not affiliated with any hate group, terrorist group, or ideology. They found no evidence of a second shooter or anyone else who might have been involved. They were unable to discern any motive whatsoever.

The shooter was relatively well off. He had millions in assets, multiple properties, he took many cruises all over the world.

They said he scoped out other similar music festivals in the weeks prior, so it seems he was targeting music festivals for whatever reason.

One might wonder what caused this, what was going through his mind. But then one might also ask, does it even matter? Would knowing the reason help the healing process for the survivors? Does it help society to know, in the sense that it can provide useful information to help prevent such things?

Thoughts?

The event reminded me of the Texas tower sniper who had a brain tumour.

 

[pearl]

Does it help society to know, in the sense that it can provide useful information to help prevent such things?

Even if society did/does know, but what has actually changed?

All fourteen AR-15-type rifles were outfitted with bump stocks that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire rapidly, simulating fully-automatic gunfire.[67][72] Audio recordings of the attack indicated Paddock used these stocks to fire at the crowd in rapid succession.[73][74][75]
Stephen Paddock - Wikipedia

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

It is quite bizarre that we have no motive for the attack, as mass shooters tend to be very forthcoming with justifications and leave a paper trail. But he's not the only one. They still don't know why Adam Lanza did the Sandy Hook massacre or why he chose the school as a target.

 

[Stevicus]

Even if society did/does know, but what has actually changed?

All fourteen AR-15-type rifles were outfitted with bump stocks that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire rapidly, simulating fully-automatic gunfire.[67][72] Audio recordings of the attack indicated Paddock used these stocks to fire at the crowd in rapid succession.[73][74][75]
Stephen Paddock - Wikipedia

The article mentioned that Nevada passed some legislation, such as a red-flag bill which allows authorities to seize weapons from high-risk individuals. Also, there was a law against ghost guns, currently being challenged in the state supreme court.

Another twist is that the Sheriff of Clark County at the time is now running for Nevada Governor, and he's a pro-Trump nominee.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Five Years Since the Route 91 Massacre No One Knows a Damn Thing (msn.com)

I was not aware that they changed the name of the Las Vegas Massacre to the "Route 91 Massacre."

Apparently, there's been some disagreement and consternation regarding what to call the memorial, as well as the number of victims. The original number of victims was 58, but there were two women who were shot on that day but died years later.



Not much more has been learned about this shooting since the initial reports almost five years ago. They still don't what the motive was, although the shooter did have a rather strange history. (Stephen Paddock - Wikipedia)

I recall that when the story of the shooting first broke, there were reports that ISIS had claimed responsibility, that the shooter was one of their "soldiers," but the authorities said they found no evidence that ISIS was behind it. However, the Wiki article states that Paddock had traveled to the Middle East in the last year of his life, but it didn't elaborate on why he went to the Middle East or whether he had any contacts over there.

This incident still remains as the deadliest mass shooting event by a lone shooter in U.S. history.

The article goes into detail about many of the survivors' stories and how they've fared in the aftermath. It mentions legislative action taken in Nevada, though the incident has also polarized those who are either pro-gun control or not. Apparently, some survivors see this as a reason for buying even more guns.



There have also been some lawsuits in the aftermath, and the official police investigation seemed to leave more questions than answers.



The investigation concluded that he acted alone, that he was not affiliated with any hate group, terrorist group, or ideology. They found no evidence of a second shooter or anyone else who might have been involved. They were unable to discern any motive whatsoever.

The shooter was relatively well off. He had millions in assets, multiple properties, he took many cruises all over the world.

They said he scoped out other similar music festivals in the weeks prior, so it seems he was targeting music festivals for whatever reason.

One might wonder what caused this, what was going through his mind. But then one might also ask, does it even matter? Would knowing the reason help the healing process for the survivors? Does it help society to know, in the sense that it can provide useful information to help prevent such things?

Thoughts?

Some musings - from the Wiki:

His father being a bank robber and not being present in his early life (so mostly being with a single mother) might have had something to do with it - for example, him wanting to outdo the notoriety of his father and be remembered for such. As many people do in life - perform according to expectations or as to repulsing parental influences. His gambling - and winning - perhaps was a slight to his father - not needing to actually rob banks since he could get the money legitimately. And his losing some of his wealth prior to the shooting might have been a factor.

But it is likely that he had a mental health issue of some sort.

 

[pearl]

Another twist is that the Sheriff of Clark County at the time is now running for Nevada Governor, and he's a pro-Trump nominee.

That's just great. Why is it that people cannot, or refuse to acknowledge these and like weapons have only one reason, to kill humans?

 

[Stevicus]

That's just great. Why is it that people cannot, or refuse to acknowledge these and like weapons have only one reason, to kill humans?

I think they know that part of it, but the main argument I've encountered is that they feel a need to have these kinds of weapons for defense. The Las Vegas incident even bolstered this view in some people's minds. Some may be prepping for Armageddon, alien invasion, lizard people, or who knows what else?