Shooting at Aria Casino Latest Gun Incident on Las Vegas Strip

Posted on: September 23, 2020, 11:38h. 

Last updated on: September 23, 2020, 12:29h.

Larry Henry Read More

Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Gaming Business, Legislation, Politics, Regulation.

One person was injured in an overnight shooting at the Aria Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip, police said. This is one of several gun incidents at casinos on the Strip over the past few days.

Shots were fired during a dispute in the valet area at the Aria on Tuesday around 11 pm, according to area police. One woman was grazed in the incident and taken to a hospital with a minor injury. Later, she was released.

By midday Wednesday, police had not arrested a suspect.

On an Instagram post by WQHT-FM radio, a person identified as MoneyBagg Yo is heard saying he was in Las Vegas, but denied the shots were directed at him or his party. By Wednesday, the Memphis, Tennessee-native had not posted this same message to the 5.3 million followers on his own Instagram page.

One Twitter user identified as Dorien Grais posted that she heard six gunshots from her 35th-floor room at the nearby Vdara hotel-casino. “Is is not safe in a 5-star place?” she asked in the tweet.

Gunplay on the Strip

The shooting at the Aria is the third reported gun incident on the Las Vegas Strip in less than a week.

Two people were injured in a shooting in front of the Paris hotel-casino on Saturday. One person was shot five times, according to KLAS-TV. Both victims were expected to survive. Three men were arrested and charged in the incident.

On Tuesday, police chased a man with a gun from Harrah’s hotel-casino on the Strip to the nearby Casino Royale, where he was arrested, the television station reported.

Hours after the shooting at the Aria, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said these incidents seem to be the result of people having little to do now that large venues such as nightclubs are closed under COVID-19 restrictions. Casinos were allowed to reopen June 4 with health measures in place.

Lombardo is head of the combined city-county Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

It’s just a lot of people in a small condensed area, and you infuse their desire to have a great time and infuse things like alcohol and drugs and it’s a bad combination,” he said on KLAS-TV’s Good Day Las Vegas.

Police have made more than 1,100 arrests and confiscated more than 60 guns in downtown Las Vegas and on the Strip in recent weeks, the sheriff said.

Encore Resort Melee

These incidents come in the wake of a large fight earlier this month at the Encore Resort, also on the Las Vegas Strip.

This melee prompted Wynn Resorts, which owns the Encore, to file a lawsuit against 20 unknown men and women involved in the incident. Damage to the property was estimated at more than $15,000.

A Wynn Resorts spokesperson told the Review-Journal the company planned to increase room rates and hire more security.