Bill inspired by Oct. 1 Las Vegas shooting aims to ease chaos for victims’ families – Las Vegas Sun News

A proposal advancing through the Nevada Legislature is designed to expedite victim identification, family reunification and delivery of long-term support services by requiring counties to establish electronic databases for mass casualty incidents.

The state last month unanimously approved Assembly Bill 50, which awaits state Senate consideration. The bill was inspired by the challenges that emergency personnel faced in the aftermath of the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip that immediately claimed 58 lives and left hundreds wounded.

Misty Richardson, assistant emergency manager at Clark County’s Office of Emergency Management, testified Thursday before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee that the identification process was painfully slow. Making connections between victims and their families often can take hours or even days, leaving loved ones in prolonged uncertainty during an already traumatic time, she said.

Richardson oversaw reunification efforts after the Las Vegas mass shooting and said they were “paralyzed” by a lack of information and couldn’t help families.

The bill was in the spotlight Thursday during Advocacy Day at the Legislature. May 8 was picked for the day in remembrance for the 58 people who were killed in the largest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

A group of survivors, families, first responders, community leaders and advocates affected by the shooting took to the Capitol to support the bill. They are also seeking unspecified state support for funding to construct a permanent memorial on the shooting site.

“Today is about more than remembrance; it’s about reflection, healing and honoring the voices that helped shape this vision,” Tennille Pereira, former chair of the county’s 1 October Memorial Committee, said at a Thursday news conference. “This memorial will be a beacon for generations to come, a physical manifestation of resilience and compassion. As we gather on May 8, or 5/8 in symbolic honor of the 58, we feel their presence, we carry their stories, and we carry their voices with us as we build a place that is a tribute to resilience, community and remembrance.”

The 1 October After-Action Report released by Metro Police, Clark County Fire Department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency National Preparedness Directorate in 2018 highlighted a “failure” in creating and obtaining an accurate patient list with information such as the patient count per hospital, injury types, contact information and locations of patients.

It was recommended that a system be established to coordinate the collection of victim information.

Richardson said during the hearing that the county had been seeking to create a patient tracking database for five years after the mass shooting, but existing programs didn’t fit what was wanted.

Federal officials assured the county that Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations would not impede their efforts to protect sensitive patient information, prompting the development of the county’s own system.

The resulting database now serves as a real-time, permission-based tool spanning multiple jurisdictions, enhancing communication and reunification efforts. This system proved valuable as recently as Dec. 6, 2023, when it was deployed following the UNLV shooting that killed three professors.

The Clark County database would serve as a model for other Nevada counties under the proposed legislation.

“There’s nothing worse to tell a grieving family (that) I don’t know where your loved one is, and that’s unacceptable,” Billy Samuels, Clark County fire chief, said Thursday. “These incidents, they’re occurring more often, more frequently, and they’re gonna happen again. With the Impacted Persons Database, we do have the capability to actually in a timely fashion with accurate information let those loved ones know where their families are.”

The planned Forever One Memorial would be another way to continuing honoring the victims.

Plans call for it to feature a tower of light, 58 vertical “candles” to represent those who died in the immediate aftermath, and a community plaza for gatherings. It will be built on 2 acres at Reno Avenue and Giles Street, where the shooting took place. MGM Resorts International donated the land in August 2021.

The county decided last spring that the Vegas Strong Fund, established to raise money and support the families of victims and survivors, would oversee the fundraising for and construction of the memorial. A final cost projection for the project has not yet been released, with officials only saying it’s a multimillion-dollar effort.

Clark County donated $1 million to get the memorial started. Vegas Strong hopes to complete the project by October 2027 for the 10-year anniversary.

“Now, we’re at a crossroads, a moment to decide what kind of future we will choose. Will we choose to memorialize this tragedy; to honor it with compassion, truth and with permanence, or will we through silence and delay allow ourselves to normalize it; to let it fade into something expected, or routine, or lost in the noise of the next headline,” said Mynda Smith, sister of Neysa Tonks, a single mother of three who was killed during the shooting. “Let’s continue this journey together as Nevada shows the world the beautiful light it must give. Stand with us at the 10-year remembrance with pride for the memorial we build together.”