Still No Answers in Las Vegas Shooting
Authorities still have no motive in the Las Vegas shooting at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
PHOTO | TNS
With wooden crosses bearing the names of those killed in the mass shooting, community members gather with candles to pay tribute to their loss on the median off Las Vegas Boulevard on October 5, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mandalay Bay is in the background. Greg Zanis of Illinois drove all night to deliver the homemade crosses. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times/TNS)
More than two weeks after a man opened fire from his hotel room at the Mandalay Hotel on the Strip in Las Vegas, authorities still have no answers as to why he did it. The shooting happened Oct. 1 during the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival. This is the deadliest shooting in U.S. history.
Gunman Stephen Paddock was a 64-year-old retired man who had no known children, had two previous marriages and was allegedly dating Marilou Danley. The FBI questioned Danley who had been in the Philippines at the time of the attack. According to the New York Times, Danley said in a statement Oct. 4 that she knew Paddock only as a kind and caring man.
Alumna Maddie Marquardt’s father Andrew Marquardt was in Las Vegas during a trip with work friends when the shootings happened.
“I go to Vegas every year at the end of September or first week of October with four business guys to get away for two to three days,” Andrew said. “Four of us were at the Encore towards the north side of the strip, while one of our friends was actually in the Mandalay Bay lobby when the shooting started.”
Marquardt said she was fearful when she heard the news about Las Vegas, knowing her father was there.
“I would say yes that my perspective on mass shootings did change after that experience since it was personal for me,” Marquardt said. “It made me realize that everyone who is affected by it is someone’s son, mother, daughter, father or friend. So it definitely made me more upset about shootings in general.”
Jennifer Prusa, mother of alumnae Elizabeth Prusa ‘13 and Grace Prusa ‘17, and junior Tess Prusa, was in Las Vegas a week after the shooting for a trade show meeting.
“When we started the meeting, leaders got up and took a moment of silence for the victims of Las Vegas,” Prusa said.
Her friend, Becky Beck, mother of alumna Rachel Beck ‘15, who accompanied Prusa on the trip, actually got the chance to see the memorials.
“It was surreal seeing the memorials,” Beck said. “Seeing things on TV, then you’re there all of a sudden is mind blowing.”
Paddock’s motive is still unknown.
Diagram of suite at the Mandalay Bay.