Victims’ families from past shootings lend support to Las Vegas
They fled gunmen in San Bernardino and Tucson.
Their family members were gunned down in Aurora and Santa Barbara.
And now they’re in Las Vegas, offering support to the people who are just beginning to navigate their grief after the latest American mass shooting claimed the lives of 58 and left nearly 500 injured.
Bob Weiss’ daughter, Veronika, was shot to death by a gunman in Isla Vista, California, near Santa Barbara, three years ago. The suffering that followed for Weiss’ family was “unrelenting,” he said.
“This isn’t a process you get through,” Weiss said. “There’s a beginning, but there’s no end.”
Bob's daughter was killed in Santa Barbara shooting pic.twitter.com/NrLBDBEUqN
— Jamie Munks (@JamieMunksRJ) October 5, 2017
Weiss came to Las Vegas this week with a group of six others who survived mass shootings or whose relatives were gunned down, to support victims and their families in Las Vegas. The group gave a news conference Thursday morning in front of Las Vegas City Hall.
Weiss encouraged people who want to make donations to support Las Vegas victims and their families, to give to the National Compassion Fund, which funnels the money directly to victims. The fund has a webpage specific to the Las Vegas shooting.
The group contact information has been given to law enforcement and the Clark County Family Assistance Center, so it can be shared with victims and victims’ families.
Sandy and Lonnie Phillips’ daughter Jessica was among the 12 victims killed in the 2012 movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado. Since then, they’ve “become experts in the one thing you don’t want to be an expert in,” Sandy Phillips said.
They view the people whose loved ones were killed in Las Vegas on Sunday night as family, albeit “one you never want to be a part of,” Lonnie Phillips said.
“We are here if you only just want to look into the eyes of someone else who knows, and get a hug,” Phillips said. “We don’t know you. But we know you.”
The group travels to cities like Orlando and Las Vegas “on our own dime,” said Anita Busch, whose cousin Micayla Medek, was also gunned down in Aurora. Busch has bracelets halfway up her forearm that bear the names of Medek and victims of other mass shootings.
“This brings you to your knees,” Busch said. “We’re angry this has happened again, and again, and again.”
Contact Jamie Munks at jmunks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0340. Follow @JamieMunksRJ on Twitter.