A Metro Police Honor Guard member plays taps during a Sunrise Remembrance Ceremony, honoring victims of the Oct. 1, 2017 mass shooting, at the Clark County Government Ceremony Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022.
Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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Editor’s note: much of this editorial was published five years ago, on Oct. 8, 2017, just one week after the Oct. 1 Route 91 Harvest Festival massacre. We believe its lessons are as valuable today as they were back then, so we have updated it for the five-year anniversary of the shooting.
A smile, a kind word and a show of courtesy can go a long way at any time.
In Las Vegas, they’re invaluable.
Five years ago today, we began the process of healing from a nightmare. Only mere hours had passed since streams of gunfire erupted from the 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay and tens of thousands of people in our community became victims and survivors of the violent trauma inflicted that terrible night.
The past five years have provided some much-needed time and space for healing. It has created some sense of distance from the massacre, as new people, new businesses, new construction and new shows have continued the seemingly unending transformation of the Las Vegas Valley.
But despite those five years, despite the new faces and despite our progress toward recovery, both physically and emotionally, we remain a city in healing.
As tragedy unfolded before our eyes, we shared a deep emotional pain, and instead of backing down and buckling under its weight, we stood strong, in unity. Our unity and resiliency were so powerful that those observing from the outside didn’t have the words to describe it. So we coined a new term, and with it defined a new metric of strength that could only be born of the Mojave: #VegasStrong.
Tens of thousands of people were either at the scene or dealt with its immediate heart-shattering aftermath — victims and other concertgoers, Metro officers, first responders and hospital medical staff saw the carnage firsthand. Their spouses and relatives faced the abject terror of not knowing whether their loved ones were safe as the attack played out.
Today, many of those same people remain the first on the scene when tragedy strikes.
Up and down the Strip, resort staff members scrambled to shelter visitors amid what turned out to be false reports of shooters at multiple properties and explosions along Las Vegas Boulevard as ride-share drivers and passersby used their vehicles as an improvised fleet of ambulances.
Today, many of those individuals still call Las Vegas home.
Even those who didn’t see the tragedy first- or secondhand had to contend with the pain, sadness and terror of knowing that the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history happened in their own backyard. We will have to contend with the truth that the massacre is a part of the fabric of Las Vegas — a panel in the quilted tapestry of our region’s history and our nation’s history.
The ripple-like rings of those affected go on and on. Untold numbers of friends, co-workers and neighbors of victims and others at the scene grieved during the past five years. Many continue to do so today.
In other words, Vegas remains a city filled with heroes and a city of healing. We are still #VegasStrong. But our strength is only as powerful as our ability to unite in love and support of one another.
In the aftermath of the massacre, as the chaos subsided and the pain set in, we recognized that neighbors needed neighbors more than ever. And five years later, we cannot escape the reality that we still do.
Five years ago, we bore witness to unimaginable tragedy, but we also bore witness to overwhelming proof of the goodness of this community and the fact that above all odds, here in Southern Nevada, humanity prevails.
We need to remind our children, and ourselves, that when these horrible events happened, there were heroes literally everywhere. Those heroes are still here, all around us.
Our unity matters because it is the source of our strength.
In fact, on that night, the only person who was alone was the shooter. We all had each other and we all came together. No rain of gunfire could break our bonds.
We showed our heart to the victims, to those who responded to the scene and to the world. We lived #VegasStrong.
Now, five years later, as our community continues to heal, it’s up to us to keep showing our heart to each other through everyday acts of kindness to our neighbors. From offering common courtesies to initiating conversations with someone who’s upset or offering a warm hug, everything will help.
We didn’t choose to endure the pain we’ve experienced in the past five years. But we can do our part to ease it. And in so doing, we can be a model for the country of what strength, courage, resilience, support and love look like when you’re #VegasStrong.
