LAS VEGAS — Civic and faith leaders gathered before a bank of television cameras Monday night for a prayer vigil outside Las Vegas City Hall, the speakers standing on a podium with a banner that read #VegasStrong.
In many ways, the gathering was as much a statement about Las Vegas the city as it was a chance to pray over those killed in Sunday night’s mass shooting at a country music festival on the Strip. In a place known as a tourist destination, community exists, they said.
Mayor Carolyn Goodman said the music festival drew people from around the world “to enjoy our great weather and all the amenities that make Las Vegas so special.”
Today, so many people have turned up to give blood, she said, that volunteers are asking them to come back on later days.
“We are so touched by the loss of these lives and the horror of that mentally sick, horrible human being who has taken into his hands devastation and imprinted in our minds forever a day that really doesn’t belong in our fabulous, beautiful city,” she said.
Goodman said she has been contacted by leaders in other communities stricken by tragedy: the mayor of Orlando, Fla., where the Pulse nightclub shooting happened. The governor of Connecticut, where the Sandy Hook shooting happened.
Las Vegas is a city in mourning, but Vegas being Vegas, sorrow takes a seat beside glamour. This desert playground is now a city of contrasts, where the cacophony of slot machines still echoes in the casinos even as people come to claim the dead. The Strip was uncharacteristically quiet Tuesday — save for the screams coming from the roller coaster at New York-New York Hotel & Casino.
Nevada state Sen. Aaron Ford (D-Las Vegas) said he saw lines of people stretched around the block to give their blood.
“Our city of lights, in our hour of darkness, still shines,” he said.
Faith leaders said evil touched this city today. They cried out to God to be present in the morgues and in the hospital rooms. They recited the 23rd Psalm: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
Pastor Mike Hatch of Prayer Center Revival Church said Vegas has been known as Sin City.
“The Bible says where sin abounds, grace does much more abound,” he said. “That means, where there’s a lot of sin, there’s a lot of grace.
“Guess what. We have God’s favor in this town.”
They lit 59 candles for the dead and sang praises to God.
First Published: October 4, 2017, 12:00 p.m.
