Las Vegas moves on a year after massacre
Horrors of the night when gunman killed 58 are scattered in city
Las Vegas, Sept. 30: A small bouquet of dried flowers was wedged inside the padlock on Gate 5 of the killing ground that was the Route 91 Harvest Festival one recent day, the only visible reminder that it was the site of the worst mass shooting in modern American history. A peek inside the chainlink fence, covered in green sheeting to keep out prying eyes, revealed a sprawling patch of asphalt and little else. Towering above were the gold windows of the Mandalay Bay, where a gambler spent the last minutes of his life in room 32135 taking the lives of 58 others in a meticulously planned slaughter.
Around Las Vegas, there are scattered remembrances of the horrors of that night a year ago.
Almost every week, there's another courtordered release of police body- camera videos that provide flashbacks to the night the gunman turned the fun of the glittering Las Vegas Strip into a nightmare of death and despair. And lawsuits by MGM Resorts International to force survivors to give up their right to sue the casino company that owns Mandalay Bay opened fresh wounds over the summer.
But the "Vegas Strong" Tshirts and car stickers have largely been put away. The original handmade white crosses for each victim have long since been taken away from the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign to eventually reside in a museum in neighboring Henderson, though some new ones were brought in for the anniversary.
There has been no closure, at least officially. Authorities say they will likely never be able to determine what it was that turned a high- limit video poker player into a mass murderer.