Las Vegas' law enforcement community didn't just "happen to do their jobs" when shots rang out at a country music festival this weekend, but instead used their training to respond to a deadly situation, and the "crazy miscreant" who caused the carnage will not define the community, Mayor Carolyn Goodman said Tuesday.
"They have been so well-trained," Goodman told CNN's "New Day" program. "This is such as safe community. We have 43 million visitors every year, and 250,000 a weekend or during the week. Our law enforcement or first responders or hospitals, we're always ready."
Goodman said the city is blessed to have those who survived the attack, band "terribly distraught about what has happened to the 59 innocent people that came to our wonderful community to enjoy a wonderful country western activity and show."
The gunman, identified as Stephen Craig Paddock, a 64-year-old retired accountant from Mesquite, Nevada, killed himself before officers stormed the hotel room from where he'd fired his shots into a crowd of country music fans.
According to Paddock's brother, Eric, the gunman had made a few million dollars investing in real estate, and he had been an avid gambler. Law enforcement officials also said Paddock did not have a criminal record, and did not outline a motive for the attack that left 59 people dead.
Meanwhile, Las Vegas' convention business is huge, said Goodman, and the community is responding well to the tragedy, with people waiting in line five and six hours at blood banks to donate.
"When I drove home last night at about 10, there were more people out there with rental trucks delivering bottles and food and things to the hospitals for the families there tending to their loved ones who still remain in the hospital situation," said Goodman. "It is something. This will not define us. This crazy miscreant will not define who this community is or the people. We need to concentrate on the beautiful lives, these innocent people, who had families, and they are here and they will live with this forever."
At the same time, the shootings marked another "sad, sad day in the world," said Goodman.
"It really is in the world we know," said Goodman. "We have these sick, sick people that are bound to go ahead and repeat it. They will not define who these people are in the community, any more than all of us who love this country and love freedom and know that each one of us have a responsibility to do our individual part, to make it better, and to stop this from happening."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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