Casino owner donating site for Las Vegas shooting memorial
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — The casino company that owns the former Las Vegas Strip concert venue that in 2017 became the site of the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history said Monday it is donating part of the property for a permanent memorial.
MGM Resorts International called creation of a facility commemorating “victims and heroes of 1 October” vital to continued community recovery, and promised to keep working with a memorial panel on the design.
Word of the donation comes as the committee again asked for the public to submit opinions online through Aug. 15 about how the memorial should look.
More than 65% of some 6,000 responses received during a two-week period in March called it extremely or very important to have the memorial at the site across Las Vegas Boulevard from the Mandalay Bay resort.
Fifty-eight people died in a hail of gunfire that sent 22,000 country music fans fleeing from the Route 91 Harvest Festival. More than 850 people from Nevada, California, 13 other U.S. states and Canada were injured. The deaths of at least two people later were blamed on gunshot wounds.
The lone gunman killed himself before police reached him. While local and federal investigators concluded he meticulously planned the attack and appeared to seek notoriety, they could not identify a clear motive.
The concert site has remained idle since the massacre.
MGM Resorts said 2 acres (0.8 hectares) of the 15-acre (6.1 hectare) concert site will be provided for the memorial next to the Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer, a Roman Catholic church that became a refuge for victims.
The memorial there will be separate from a Community Healing Garden in downtown Las Vegas that was created following the shooting.
