It bothers me that there was a fatal shooting on a Deuce bus this year. What has the city done to prevent such incidents in the future? Just how safe is publicly used transportation (bus, taxis, Lyft, Uber, shuttles, monorail, trams, etc.) in my favorite vacation destination?
On the afternoon of March 25, a man, Rolando Cardenas, “with apparent mental health issues” (according to NBC News) began firing indiscriminately aboard the Deuce bus
as it neared Cosmopolitan. Casualties were few but severe: One man was shot in the stomach and survived, while another — Gary Breitling, visiting Las Vegas from Montana — was killed.
“Details or descriptions from the witnesses say that he was
on the bus as a rider and all of the sudden, he just started shooting at passengers,” Assistant Sheriff Tom Roberts told NBC. “He’s got some mental issues. We found that very evident when we talked to him,” Roberts said. “From listening to the negotiations, he seemed to be talking about seeing people and things like that.”
The standoff, which ended with the gunman’s capture, came only hours after a Bellagio jewelry store was the scene of a smash-and-grab raid carried out by three armed bandits.
Sensational though the events were, such violence is aberrant to the Las Vegas Strip. And barring psychic police powers, there’s no way to prevent violent incidents.
We can also say that in 17 years in Las Vegas, one LVA staffer who is a heavy user of buses, taxis, Uber, and Lyft has never seen anything remotely like the Deuce shooting. When using a taxi or a ride-sharing service, you’re far likelier to be gouged on your fare than harmed by the driver.
Regional Transit Commission spokesman Brad Seidel weighed in. “The RTC currently deploys approximately 126 security officers to patrol the RTC transit system, including buses, stops, and facilities, on a daily basis. Since we have 39 fixed transit routes and more than 400 buses, officers are not on every bus. Their movement is fluid throughout the day, riding various routes and buses.”
Seidel added, “We also have mobile rapid-response teams positioned in various quadrants of the valley who also provide security presence and vehicle patrol, and respond to incidents on buses. For improved communication between passengers and security, we are currently working on releasing the See Something Say Something mobile app by the end of this year.
“Additionally, RTC transit buses are equipped with multiple surveillance cameras that record for viewing as needed. We are also currently testing a pilot program that would allow for a live camera feed inside our buses that can be easily shared with law enforcement. We hope to obtain all necessary approvals to install the software system-wide by year-end,” Seidel concluded.
“It’s difficult to predict when a person is going to break,” says Metro Public Information Officer Aden Ocampogomez. RTC is testing cameras for buses that can hook up live feed to Las Vegas Metro, relaying tactical and other info to headquarters. “There is only one bus that has that capability.”
As for concerns about privacy, Metro assures us that the hookup would only be used in emergency situations. Metro also has surveillance cameras on the Strip. “Anybody can notice they are there. They have the red and blue lights that you can see as you drive down the Strip.
“With all those locations, there’s always cameras monitoring,” Ocampogomez says of the Monorail. “It’s hard for us to stop every single situation, because we don’t know what could trigger a person.”
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Jackie
Sep-26-2017
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