Families and friends of shooting victims attend a 1 October Sunrise Remembrance ceremony at the Clark County Government Center Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2019. The ceremony marked the second anniversary of the Oct. 1, 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas.
Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2019 | 4:35 p.m.
No day will ever be worse than Oct. 1. Not for Joe Robbins.
“For me, no anniversary is more terrible than the one that marks the death of my son,” Robbins said today at a sunrise ceremony to remember the victims of the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting that left 58 people dead and more than 800 injured.
“We all lost whatever innocence we had that horrific nightmare of an evening on 1 October, 2017,” said Robbins, whose 20-year-old son Quinton Robbins died when a gunman opened fire from a Strip hotel tower on thousands of people at a country music festival.
“The world is indeed an unimaginably frightful place at times,” he said.
Quinton Robbins’ picture and 57 others flashed on a screen at the Clark County Government Center this morning, as a choir sang “Amazing Grace.”
Before that, the crowd recognized 58 painfully long seconds of silence.
Gov. Steve Sisolak choked up as he recalled the night of the shooting and later standing on the festival grounds, where ringing cell phones left behind by those who lost their lives or fled for them were scattered on the ground.
Sisolak also highlighted the good born from that day — the heroic actions of first responders, community blood drives to save the wounded and expressions of sympathy from across the country that “overshadowed the evil of one monster.”
Robbins used the tragedy as the impetus to start the Quinton Robbins Pay it Forward Foundation, which awards scholarships to local athletes like the young people his son coached in football, baseball and basketball.
Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said the events of Oct. 1 “changed all of us” and placed Las Vegas in a sorrowful fraternity of communities scarred by mass shootings. “Too many lives have been lost. Too many people have been hurt,” he said.
Lombardo said today is a time to pause and think about the victims and how amazing they were. “We will continue to remember them,” he said.
Angelica Maria Cervantes will never forget.
Her son Erick Silva, 21, was a security guard at the festival and was killed as he helped others escape the gunfire.
“Life has changed a lot,” said Cervantes, who now has a portrait of her son inked on her arm. “He was the joy of the house...We miss him greatly.”
