Karin Telle looks at memorial crosses for the victims of the Oct. 1 mass shooting during a sunrise remembrance ceremony at the Clark County Government Center, Monday, Oct. 1, 2018.
Saturday, Nov. 28, 2020 | 2 a.m.
There’s no perfect answer in how a permanent memorial honoring the victims of the Oct. 1, 2017, Las Vegas mass shooting should look and feel.
The Clark County committee tasked with planning the tribute display should consider the voices of victims, survivors, victims’ families and first responders, said Anita Ahuja, manager of mass violence response for the California Victim Compensation Board.
Ahuja spoke to the seven-member 1 October Memorial Committee last week during its initial meeting, advising them that “the goal is to provide comfort and hope and facilitate healing.”
The committee is in the initial phase of planning, where they are seeking community input through public meetings, surveys and town halls. They will eventually identify a location, size and design, and funding for the memorial.
“We are not rushing this process,” Clark County Commission Chairwoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick said in a statement. “We want to create a memorial that is thoughtful and lasting, and we understand that the public discussion process may be emotional for people because many of us still live with 1 October every single day.”
Ahuja, an expert in mass violence education, has analyzed memorials that pay tribute to lives lost in other mass shootings and acts of terrorism, including the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Oklahoma City bombing and Orlando nightclub shooting. The other memorials included victims’ name inscriptions, a peaceful setting, seating for gatherings, and a combination of art and nature, she said.
The Sept. 11 memorial was completed 10 years after the twin towers collapsed at the World Trade Center in 2001. It took six years before the tribute to the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting came to fruition, and five years to build the memorial to victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, Ahuja told the committee.
Ahuja said the architect selected to design the Las Vegas shooting memorial should be deeply entrenched in the community and understand how the tragedy impacted it. Michael Arad, the architect who designed the Sept. 11 memorial, saw the south tower collapse outside of his window, Ahuja said.
Mynda Smith, a 1 October Memorial Committee member and sister of a Las Vegas shooting victim, suggested the committee consider a more downplayed memorial over a large-scale project. Those have included museums dedicated to archiving the tragic event, fountains, large pools of water and significant landscaping jobs.
“I think we should consider how far or how small we can go. Simplicity is great too,” Smith said.
The committee will also need to determine where to place the memorial. If it’s constructed near the shooting site on the Las Vegas Strip, survivors visiting the site could experience retraumatization, said Karessa Royce, a survivor of the Las Vegas shooting and vice chairwoman of the committee.
“A lot of the victims in the community, they don’t want to go back there,” Royce said.
Tennille Pereira, director of the Vegas Strong Resiliency Center who serves as chairwoman of the committee, said expenses should be considered early on and simultaneously with collecting community feedback. Pereira also asked about including in the memorial names of those who died of injuries from the shooting years later. Initially, there were 58 victims, but two others who were wounded died in the last year.
Committee member Harold Bradford, an artist and designer, said architects need to be brought in early on in planning so they can understand what the community wants and not be rushed in to complete the work on a short deadline.
The committee has a lot to digest, agreeing that this is something they have to get right.
“We don’t want to forget those whose lives were lost and forever impacted because of the devastating act of evil that occurred,” Kirkpatrick said. “We also don’t want to forget the strength and compassion our community showed — from the first responders and everyday heroes who risked their lives to help victims to our caring residents who offered assistance in large and small ways in the aftermath.”
The committee meets the fourth Wednesday of every month at the Clark County Government Center. Meetings can be watched live on YouTube and on the committee’s Facebook page.
For information, visit www.ClarkCountyNV.gov/1OctoberMemorial.
