Vegas Massacre
 

Car strikes pedestrians on Las Vegas Strip
One dead, 13 injured

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) -- A car plowed into pedestrians along the crowded Las Vegas Strip on Wednesday, killing one and injuring 13, authorities said. Police arrested the driver at the scene.

The car jumped the curb about 5:15 p.m. and drove into people walking in front of the Bally's and Paris hotel-casinos, officials said.

A 52-year-old man was pronounced dead at University Medical Center, a hospital spokeswoman said. Eight other people, all adults, were being treated at the hospital.

Five people were taken to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, where one man was in critical condition and two others were listed as serious, hospital spokeswoman Glenda McCartney said.

After striking the pedestrians, the burgundy Buick crashed into a wall and came to a stop in a landscaped area in front of Bally's.

The car's driver, Stephen Ressa, 27, of Rialto, California, was arrested at the scene by an off-duty officer who was at a nearby restaurant, authorities said. It wasn't clear if he was injured, and results of drug and alcohol tests were pending.

Police spokesman Jose Montoya said authorities were investigating whether the car with California license plates was stolen. Ressa was being held in jail.

"We have not ruled out whether this was an intentional or unintentional act," Deputy Police Chief Greg McCurdy said.

The Las Vegas Strip was closed in both directions as a dozen ambulances and scores of police officers and firefighters tended to the injured and interviewed witnesses. Thousands of onlookers lined police tape that stretched hundreds of feet along the Strip.

Lynette Farmer, 33, of Woodstock, Georgia, walked by the scene after seeing the chaos from her hotel room at Paris Las Vegas.

"We didn't hear the crash," she said. "But we saw people lying on the sidewalk."

Farmer's husband, Andy, said the couple had been down the same stretch of the Strip about an hour before the crash.

"The speed on this road is just too fast," said Farmer, a police officer in Canton, Georgia.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/22/ped....ap/index.html

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They really should just close that street off and make it a pedestrian mall - and then make the casinos use the side and back streets as the motor entrances. It is soooo jammed packed at night it is ridiculous.

Well that's just awful, but how is this a massacre when there's 1 person dead? I expected to read something else, I guess that title is a bit sensationalised.

True - sensationalism at it best :laugh:

I agree on that..
Not to diminish the gravity of what occurred.

This is a bit reminiscent of that old man who lost control of his car the other year and it plowed into the marketplace. Hopefully in this case if the young guy is found to have been under the influence he'll be heavily prosecuted.

Why, are you trying to top another boardmember :laugh:

I thought the word fit in the sense that people were hurt and one died and another apparently is close to it. But, I used massacre in the worng way. Wanna spank me :angel: :angel: :angel:

Bend over.

You shouldn't ask me such questions, esp. after workdays like I had today, grmbl.. sorry.

Should I put on my sheep costume or is bayyyaaaayyyaaaaaing enough :laugh: :laugh:

Wow. hadn't heard about this. I wonder what this guys was on? :distress:

Police: Driver aimed at crowd
Driver accused of assaulting his mother

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) -- The driver of a stolen car who authorities say deliberately plowed into pedestrians on the Las Vegas Strip, killing two and injuring a dozen others, will face charges of murder and attempted murder.

Witnesses said the driver, Stephen M. Ressa, 27, of Rialto, California, accelerated as he drove along the crowded casino sidewalk, Deputy Police Chief Greg McCurdy said.

One witness described it as "humans being mowed down like a lawnmower," McCurdy said. "It appears he did this intentionally."

Ressa was arrested Wednesday at the chaotic scene that stretched for yards under the marquee of the Bally's hotel-casino. There was no record Thursday that Ressa had retained a lawyer.

The injured were strewn along the sidewalk and treated in the street by emergency workers as stunned tourists looked on. An off-duty Las Vegas police officer, Martin Wright, rushed from a nearby restaurant to help.

"All I saw was bodies on the sidewalk and in the bushes," Wright said Thursday.

The victims, including 11 tourists, were walking in front of the Bally's and Paris hotel-casinos when the car struck them, then crashed into a wall and came to a stop in a landscaped area in front of Bally's.

Eight of the injured remained hospitalized Thursday, including two in serious condition, officials said. Gordon Kusayanagi, 52, of Hollister, California, died Wednesday; Mark Modaressi, 26, of Irvine, California, died Thursday.

Ressa also had been sought by his hometown police in a near-fatal assault Monday on his mother, who owned the car Ressa was driving in Las Vegas.

He was held Thursday without bail at the county jail and could face a court appearance as early as Monday.

During interviews with detectives, Ressa appeared lucid and correctly answered questions about his ability to determine right and wrong, McCurdy said. But Ressa's statements were "bizarre in nature," McCurdy said.

Results of alcohol and drug tests were pending.

Rialto police Det. Sgt. Reinhard Burkholder said Ressa was wanted for questioning in the assault on his 54-year-old mother. He had not been charged in that case.

"He punched her numerous times in the face and choked her into unconsciousness and stood over her with a butcher knife," Burkholder said.

Ressa may have been under the influence of methamphetamine, Burkholder said.

He was not being pursued by officers when he crashed in Las Vegas, police said.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/22/ped....ap/index.html

This is terrible. But I'll tell ya ... there have been times when I've been sitting in my automobile on the Strip, literally inching along -- about a block every 40 minutes or so -- when I thought I'd go nuts & just go driving up onto the sidewalk.

That Strip is a disastrous congestion zone . . . & this is a Southern California resident talking.

amen. it takes for-evah to cross that street and it's too dangerous to jaywalk... i miss you :wavey:

now - have sooooooo many questions - about love, and pain, about strained relationships!!! :wavey:

What a nice guy eh? GD psycho-F**K-tard. Another one of these quirky buggers that'll be charged, Ca. & Nv. will pay up the wazoo in legal fees to prosecute/sentence, then it'll be another 10 years before anything happens.

Fry him now...move on. What happens in a back alley of Vegas stays in a back alley of Vegas!

Gahh...

Come back to us! :wavey:

Ummm... the guy was FROM California..... :shocked: