VOA常速英语:悲剧后拉斯维加斯居民的坚强

The famous Las Vegas Strip now home to sacred spots, to reflect, to pray, to grieve.

“He did not run, he was actually helping others.”Samantha Ross lost her cousin Quintin Robbins.His amazing smile and generous spirit.Two of Samantha’s friends also died in the Las Vegas shooting.

“I’m angry. I want to scream, I want to cry, I just want to sleep.I haven’t been able to sleep very much.I look at the Mandalay Bay and I want to scream. I’m glad the guy’s dead.”

But she’s also thankful.She had tickets to the concert, but couldn’t go because her children were sick.Instead, she had to explain the killing of 58 people and the maiming of nearly 500 others to her five-year-old. “I said a very bad guy did a very bad thing.And a lot of people got hurt and killed, and I just told her the truth, but in a way that a kindergartener could understand.”

These men pray the 23rd song the one about walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Armando Gonzalez drove here from California.“We believe in Jesus Christ and he say ‘my own peace I give you’. So that’s the reason we are here because we need the peace in our heart.”

Further up the strip in a city used to policing casinos for card sharks officers are on guard.Metal detectors at some hotels scanned customers for two days.Now they just searched golf club bags for weapons, still not known as how Steven Paddock got 23 guns into his hotel room.

Stacey Disney thinks about those firearms remembering a recent talk she had with her children.“Just taking my boys up, two boys, you know. I hate guns and I was telling them how guns can hurt people. ”To most people across this country, Las Vegas is viewed as a gambling mecca and a tourist spot.It takes a tragedy like this to help people see the community behind the city and the fact that now they’re all rallying behind the phrase ‘Vegas strong’.

Carolyn Presutti VOA News Las Vegas Nevada.