Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 | 10:16 a.m.
Country music echoed around the Clark County Government Center Amphitheater as the sun rose Tuesday above the nearby county building.
People filled the grassy area for the seventh remembrance of the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip.
Though some may still be haunted by the attack at the music festival that immediately killed 58 and wounded over 800, Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said the love and community support persists as survivors, families of victims and Southern Nevada continue to move forward.
It remains the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
“It’s been seven years since the Route 91 Harvest music festival, but it feels like yesterday to those of us who lost loved ones, those that survived and those that responded that night in 2017,” McMahill told attendees of the annual remembrance event. “To say that many of us are still haunted today by what took place would be accurate. To be haunted means that you show signs of mental anguish or trauma, and that continues to be the truth for many of us here today, across this country and others.”
McMahill was joined Tuesday morning by Clark County Commissioners Tick Segerblom, William McCurdy III, Jim Gibson, Marilyn Kirkpatrick and Michael Naft; Clark County Manager Kevin Schiller; Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford; Metro Chaplain Dean Sanner; members from local country band Thrillbilly Deluxe; and Michael Duarte, the brother of a Route 91 victim.
Thrillbilly Deluxe performed their song “Let You Go” and a cover of “Amazing Grace.” Lead vocalist Tony Parker was a survivor of the shooting, and this year was the first time he’d ever attended the early morning Clark County ceremony.
In his opening remarks, McMahill honored former Metro Officer Charleston Hartfield, 34, who was off-duty attending the Route 91 festival when the bullets began flying. He was killed while trying to help other concertgoers.
McMahill also recalled the story of him and his wife, retired Metro Deputy Captain Kelly McMahill, responding to the event, calling it “a night we will never forget, the night that forever changed us all as human beings and first responders.”
He lamented that first responders were unable to save everyone the night of Oct. 1, 2017, and saw so many people injured.
But “out of darkness comes great hope, great change” and hopefully one day, “great peace,” he said.
After the mass shooting, Metro opened a Wellness Bureau for its first responders who needed healing, and it now serves over 400 Metro personnel and their families a month.
He also discussed the permanent memorial, named the “Forever One Memorial,” that is set to break ground within the next six months. JCJ Architecture’s proposed design was chosen by the county after a years-long , and the Vegas Strong Fund — which now oversees the fundraising and completion of the project — is now collecting donations for the construction.
McMahill revealed that he and Kelly attended a Jason Aldean show in Laughlin over the weekend and were able to meet with the country star, who was performing onstage when the shooting began seven years ago. Aldean and his manager met with the McMahills and agreed to help them with the memorial efforts moving forward. They aim to complete and open the memorial by Oct. 1, 2027 — the 10th remembrance of the shooting.
Segerblom, following McMahill, reaffirmed the county’s support in helping make the permanent memorial a reality and emphasized the importance of getting it done for the sake of the county and community.
He also took the time to discourage gun violence, imploring the audience members to “commit (themselves) to whatever it takes to end” it.
“It is so important to all of us that this acknowledges the impact this had on us, but also to appreciate the lives that were lost and the impact that all of us felt,” Segerblom said. “It’s just (a) horrendous event, but now we are able to move forward, so the next three years, we’re going to focus on building this great memorial and make sure — three years from today — we all come here and celebrate and honor what has happened.”
For the first time since 2017, Duarte returned to Las Vegas to speak about his younger sister Christiana “Chrissy” Duarte, a 22-year-old California native who died during the shooting.
In a tearful speech,mMichael Duarte described the days after the shooting when his family was rushing from hospital to hospital looking for information on his sister. They had come to Las Vegas with Christiana Duarte but did not attend the Route 91 Harvest Festival with her.
He said he could still remember the screams and yells of his family on Oct. 3, 2017, when they finally discovered that Christiana Duarte had died.
Christiana Duarte was originally from Torrance, Calif., had recently graduated from the University of Arizona with a business degree and had moved back to Southern California to take a job with the Los Angeles Kings.
There were many days of anguish and anger for Michael Duarte in the years following, he said, and he never expected to be back in Las Vegas after what happened to his sister.
“Grief is all the love that we cannot give. It’s heavy; it gathers in the corner of our eyes, lump in our throats, in a feeling of hopelessness in our chest; it’s love with nowhere to go,” Michael Duarte said tearfully to the crowd on Tuesday morning. “All of us have one thing in common: every morning, we get up and we put two feet on the ground and we keep going.”
Michael Duarte described his younger sister as someone who “lit up the room with her selfless heart and her beautiful smile” and “cared more about the strangers’ feelings than she did for herself.” He added that she was his best friend, and now has two “beautiful nieces” that she watches over as their angel.
To find hope amid their heartbreak, Michael and Christiana Duarte’s parents created the Kindness for Chrissy Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on fighting human trafficking. He gave special mention to his parents and thanked all the nonprofits and first responders for their help throughout the years.
As he began to finish, Michael Duarte left the crowd with a prayer, 58 seconds of silence for the victims and five lessons he learned about grief.
It’s OK not to beOK; don’t compare your life to someone else’s that isn’t experiencing the same grief or loss; ask for help; learn about how you’re feeling and understand how you’re growing at a different speed; and don’t forget to look back and see how far you’ve come, then forgive yourself for mistakes made along the way.
“There’s no guide to grief, no class, no teacher, no education, no counseling that can correspond (to) the feeling each of us have been through,” Michael Duarte said. “It’s countless hours with oneself that gives us the opportunity to grow into the people our angels are looking down on us today.”