LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — An emotional ceremony on Thursday morning marked nine years since the 1 October mass shooting in Las Vegas.
The sunrise remembrance ceremony is held each year to remember and honor the victims and survivors of what remains the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Fifty-eight people were killed that night, and more than 500 others were wounded.
For survivors like Debbie Allen, who lost her son Christopher Roybal that night, the wounds are more than physical.
"I used to believe the old saying that time heals all wounds," Allen said Thursday morning. "But losing Christopher has taught me a different truth: Some wounds are too deep to truly heal."
For Allen and other survivors, the wound she carries is a constant reminder to honor the memory her son and the 58 lives taken that night.
"We gather here on October 1st — as we have for the last nine years — not because grief demands it, but because love does," Allen said. "We gather because they were here, because they mattered, because they are deeply loved and missed, and they will never be forgotten."
WATCH | Debbie Allen, Gov. Joe Lombardo and Sheriff Kevin McMahill speak at the 1 October Sunrise Remembrance Ceremony:
The work to further that mission is culminating this week in the groundbreaking of a permanent memorial on ground that echoes with the footsteps of those caught up in tragedy that night.
The site of the Route 91 Harvest Festival will become the Forever One Memorial. The committee overseeing its funding, design and construction hopes to open the site to the public next year, to mark 10 years since the shooting.
"After Christopher went home to heaven, I understood that people die twice: The day they leave this world, and the day their name is no longer spoken," Allen said. "I will speak his name every day for the rest of my life."
Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill told Allen the memorial embodies the community's promise to never forget her son and the countless people who still carry the wounds of 1 October.
"You're not the only one that's going to speak his name," McMahill said. "That's why we're going to build this memorial. I promise you that we will always speak their names."
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