The past fortnight has brought dark and tragic days to Southern Nevada. As our community picks up the pieces and moves forward, we must not forget the victims and their loved ones.
On Wednesday, a deranged gunman killed three people at UNLV and seriously injured another. We don’t yet know what motivated the 67-year-old perpetrator, but reports indicate he had been unsuccessful in his efforts to gain employment at the university.
The victims of his rampage were all faculty members.
Among the dead was Cha Jan “Jerry” Chang, a 64-year-old professor of management information systems. “He was a gentle and kind soul,” said Rajiv Kishore, a UNLV professor who occupied an office next to Mr. Chang. “I truly never saw him perturbed. He was always even-keel, always smiling.”
Also killed was Navarro Velez, a 39-year-old accounting professor. Her former instructor remembered her as “an example for the students, an example for accounting professionals.” She leaves behind four children.
On Friday, the coroner’s office released the name of the third casualty, Naoko Takemaru, the 69-year-old head of UNLV’s Japanese Studies Program. UNLV President Keith Whitfield described her as “incredibly dedicated to her students.”
This horrific violence came less than a week after two members of the Nevada Highway Patrol were killed in the early morning hours of Nov. 30 when they were struck by a hit-and-run driver after stopping to assist another motorist on Interstate 15 just north of the Spaghetti Bowl.
Police later arrested a Las Vegas man for the crime. He has been charged with two counts each of reckless driving resulting in death, DUI resulting in death and failing to stop at the scene of a crash.
The victims were Michael Abbate and Alberto Felix.
Mr. Abbate, 37, had served in the Nevada Highway Patrol for 10 years. A colleague described him as “one of the most kind, intelligent and laid-back people I’ve ever known.”
Mr. Felix, 54, was a four-year Highway Patrol veteran who previously served in the Air Force. He leaves a wife and three children. “He was a selfless and humble leader many of us came to admire,” one trooper recalled at his memorial last week.
But the specter of death only became more palpable. A day after the troopers were run down, a man shot up a homeless encampment on East Charleston near Sandhill. Four people were injured and one killed. Police have yet to arrest a suspect.
The dead man was 57-year-old Timothy Bratton.
“I have no clue,” one homeless man who saw the shooting told the Review-Journal. “Maybe because we’re homeless, you know. … There was no argument or nothing. Everybody was talking, you know, I mean, he just showed up and shot us. He focused on the men. There were women there, too. He took aim at the men and shot all five of them.”
We have a tendency to demand explanations for events that seem difficult to fathom. Sometimes no satisfactory answer exists. But we can take the time to remember and honor the victims of these inhumane acts and, by doing so, perhaps help foster a climate of respect, shared values and decorum that can douse the flames of nihilism, anger and barbarity burning inside so many distressed souls.
“We cannot stop every act of senseless violence,” Barack Obama once said. “We cannot know every evil that lurks in troubled minds. But if we can prevent even one tragedy like this, save even one life, spare other families what these families are going through, surely we’ve got an obligation to try.”
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