Local Impacted by Vegas Killings

On Oct. 1, at about 10 p.m. Pacific Time, a shooter named Stephen Paddock opened fire into a crowd of 22,000 people who were in attendance of the Route 91 Country Music Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The shooter unloaded multiple rounds from a hotel room on the 32nd floor from the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino that was across the street from the event. His shooting spree lasted approximately 10 minutes, a total of 59 people died and nearly 500 others were injured.

Among those injured, were several people from Long Beach and surrounding neighborhoods around the city.

One of those people was off-duty police records technician Rachel Parker, a 33-year-old Long Beach resident who was a 10-year civilian employee of the Manhattan Beach Police Department, reported by the Press-Telegram.

The P-T also reported that eight-off duty Long Beach police officers were near or attending the country music concert in Las Vegas during the shooting.

None of the police officers were hurt, but a friend traveling with one of the police officers was shot, no report on how bad the injury is.

There were also at least two LA County Sheriff’s Department employees, an LA police officer and an Orange County Sheriff’s deputy that were all wounded by the shooting, according to the P-T.

According to the Long Beach Police Officers Association, in an email sent out on Tuesday, Oct. 3, several other police officers were shot because of the tragic event.

An Ontario Police Department officer was shot and is in critical condition.

One Newport Beach Police Department officer was shot.

One San Bernardino Deputy Sheriff was shot.

A San Bernardino probation officer was shot.

Bakersfield Police Department officer was shot.

Two Riverside Sheriff employees were shot, one being in critical condition.

The LBPOA also wrote that a former Long Beach resident was killed in the massacre. The resident was 30-year-old Johnathan Paumonte.

Paumonte was a former Poly High School football player and a Californian State University, Long Beach graduate.

He had recently moved to Las Vegas with his wife, who had given birth to twins, a boy and girl, just a month ago.

According to the LBPOA, Paumonte had friends within the Long Beach Police Department.

The people injured from the tragedy will take some time to recover, but the expenses will be extensive.

According to Global News, the total cost for the Las Vegas shooting is estimated to be $600 million.

Global News interviewed Ted Miller, a researcher from the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, according to Miller the average cost of per gun death from the Las Vegas shooting could reach $7.6 million.

Despite the high medical costs, several GoFundMe pages have been started up by families and friends of the victims.

Thanks to the GoFundMe pages, people have been able to raise more than $11 million, this reported by US News on Oct. 5.

Currently it is hard to say what the victims from Long Beach and the surrounding cities will pay for their medical cost.

But so far these are all the current reports regarding the people that have been affected by the shooting here in Long Beach. More may still be reported as police still try to figure out the motive behind this horrific event.

grester@beachcomber.news