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On Oct. 8, 2017, officials released a map of Las Vegas Village, site of the Oct. 1 shooting that left 59 people dead and nearly 500 wounded, to show the portion of the grounds where belongings left behind by fleeing festivalgoers are being available to their owners. Items left behind in the southwest quadrant, shown at the bottom right of the map, can collect them at the Family Assistance Center, located in the Las Vegas Convention Center South Hall, 3150 Paradise Road.
Sunday, Oct. 8, 2017 | 12:28 p.m.
One week after the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history occurred along the Las Vegas Strip, some of those who left their personal belongings behind as they fled the scene can begin collecting them.
Officials announced today that the Family Assistance Center, located in the Las Vegas Convention Center South Hall, 3150 Paradise Road, will begin allowing those who left their belongings in the southwest quadrant of the Las Vegas Village during the Route 91 Harvest Festival on Oct. 1 to pick them up.
“It’s purely purses, cellphones, chairs, whatever people dropped when they started running,” said Paul Flood, unit chief of the FBI Victim Services Division.
Over seven truckloads of belongings were recovered and catalogued by the FBI from the southwest portion of the Las Vegas Village, the area nearest to Mandalay Bay. The quadrant accounts for one-sixth of the entire venue and includes half of the stage-side area where gunman Stephen Paddock showered festivalgoers with hundreds of bullets last Sunday from his 32nd floor suite at Mandalay Bay, killing 59 people and wounding nearly 500 more. The Family Assistance Center will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. for people standing in that area during the festival to retrieve their items, and belongings for additional areas around the venue will likely be made available later this week, Flood said.
The Family Assistance Center, initially developed only for the families of the victims in the Oct. 1 shooting, has since welcomed family members of those who were injured as well as festival attendees who were not injured, said Clark County Emergency Manager John Steinbeck. Resources at the center include assistance with documentation for those who may have lost their IDs, travel and lodging, grief counseling and spiritual health as well as legal advice and service from the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada.
As of this morning, 334 people had been served at the center since it was set up last Monday, and Steinbeck said authorities are expecting several hundred more this week. The center is not open to the public.
“We are doing our very best to bring comfort and aid to those who have been affected by this,” Steinbeck said. “We have a great amount of partners there and volunteers waiting to assist.”
As most Route 91 Harvest attendees were from outside of Las Vegas and may have returned home, FBI spokeswoman Sandy Breault said the investigations bureau had developed a victim questionnaire to help authorities identify their belongings to ship back to them. That form can be found here.
Lost cell phones are being charged at the Family Assistance Center, and those who lost their phones are encouraged to send a text message of their full names to that phone to help authorities identify it.
A complete list of information on the Family Assistance Center can be found here.
