The Faces of Las Vegas

October 9, 2017 at 5:15 am Leave a comment

Mandalay Bay Victims

These are the faces of lives lost. These are some of the people who went to a country music festival in Las Vegas for a fun night out only to find themselves on the deadly end of a mass murderer’s bullet. These are mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sisters and brothers, coworkers and friends – human beings made in God’s image.

From the moment SWAT officers burst into Stephen Paddock’s hotel room on the 32^nd floor of the Mandalay Bay, investigators began to ask the question, “Why?” Why would a man with no ostensible axe to grind or radical ideology to vindicate carry out the largest mass murder in modern American history? Why would he pick this venue? Why would he do so without leaving any apparent clues as to his motivation like a manifesto of his grievances or a record for his place in history? Why?

These are the types of questions that have been the primary drivers of countless news stories over this past week. And “why” questions are indeed very important, for their answers have the potential of helping prevent another attack like this one. But they may also be unanswerable. Indeed, one of the strangest features of this tragedy is that a week has passed and, still, the motive of this man has remained elusive. So, rather than asking “why?” I want to take a moment to focus on “who.” Who was it that lost their life a week ago Sunday?

Bill Wolfe Jr. coached youth wrestling and Little League in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. He had worked for an engineering firm and was well-known as being fun-loving and “a devoted Christian.”

Candice Bowers was described as a woman who “was so busy taking care of everyone else…that she rarely took time for herself.” She lived in Garden Grove, California and had recently adopted her two-year-old niece, Ariel. She also had two older children, ages 20 and 16, and worked as a waitress.

Christopher Roybal was a 28-year-old Navy veteran whose mom was supposed to join him at the concert that night, but before she could meet up with him, shots rang out. He was medically discharged from the Navy in 2012 after going mostly deaf in his left ear. He was a man who would graciously watch chick flicks with and for his mom and had the Lord’s Prayer tattooed on his side. He worked as a fitness trainer in North Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Sandy Casey was a special education teacher in Manhattan Beach, California. She was engaged and was attending the concert with her fiancé. The Superintendent of the Manhattan Beach Unified School District described Sandra as “a spectacular teacher who devoted her life to helping some of our most needy students.”

Charleston Hartfield was a Las Vegas police officer and was off-duty when attending the concert. He was a 34-year-old military veteran who coached youth football. He published a book titled Memoirs of a Public Servant, detailing his time on the Las Vegas Police Force. He leaves behind a wife, a son, and a daughter.

These are the names of only five of the victims who lost their lives a week ago Sunday. 58 were murdered in all. That leaves 53 other names. 53 other faces. 53 other stories. 53 other people. I would encourage you to take some time to learn more about them.

The questions of “why” will always be, in some sense, unanswerable – even if a motive is discovered and a record of the assailant’s thinking is uncovered. Shooting up a concert full of innocent people can never be made to make actual sense, even if investigators uncover what made it make sense to the perpetrator. Sin never leads people to act sanely. Before sin ever affects our actions, it infiltrates and corrupts our minds. This is why the questions of “why,” though they may be important to investigators, cannot eclipse the stories of the people who lost their lives. They matter most. For they are the reason families are grieving and a nation is reflecting. May we never become so obsessed with the motive for a crime that we forget about the people hurt – and, sadly, taken – by this crime.