At least four women and four men, including a sheriff’s sergeant, all from SCV, were among at least 527 people wounded at a concert in Las Vegas Sunday where a gunman shot and killed at least 59 people.
At least eight local residents were injured in the shooting.
Susie LaPorte, a recently retired Valencia hair dresser, was shot twice – once in the upper torso and once in the neck.
Kim Peoples, a Valencia resident and teacher at Meadows Elementary School, suffered an injury to her leg either from shrapnel caused by a gunshot or from a gunshot itself.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Department Sgt. Andy Dahring, with the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station, was recovering Monday after being shot in the shoulder during Sunday’s concert.
The list of local people injured in the shooting, includes:
- Travis Phippen was shot in the arm and remains in the hospital, family friend Jim Martin told The Signal Monday morning.
- Susie LaPorte, a recently retired Valencia hair dresser, was shot twice – once in the upper torso and once in the neck.
- Kim Peoples, a Valencia resident and teacher at Meadows Elementary School, suffered an injury to her leg either from shrapnel caused by a gunshot or from a gunshot itself.
- Los Angeles County Sheriff Department Sgt. Andy Dahring, with the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station, was recovering Monday after being shot in the shoulder during Sunday’s concert. Sheriff spokeswoman Shirley Miller told The Signal that “Sgt. Andy Dahring is in stable condition.”
- Dominica Zeolla, of Canyon Country. Dominica Zeolla underwent surgery in Las Vegas after being shot. Her Mother, Debbie told The Signal Monday: “She’s Ok but there’s a swelling in her neck.” She is reported to be in stable condition.
- Jessi Presten, of Valencia; Presten works as a loan officer at Skyline Home Loans in Valencia. One of Presten’s friends told The Signal: “She was shot in the arm.”
- Cesar Ranuschio, of Canyon Country. According to a GoFundme site set up to raise money for him, Cesar was in Las Vegas with his fiancé Jessica when he was shot in the shoulder, according to Anne Marlett-Scholzen who set up the fund. She wrote; “during surgery it was discovered that the bullet had moved and lodged in his heart. A second surgery was required.”
- Bruce “Bud” Wayne Horn, of Castaic; A spokesman for the Horn family plumbing company, Horns Backflow & Plumbing Services Inc., said Bud was injured in Las Vegas but had no update on his medical condition.
At least 59 people were killed and at least 527 were wounded Sunday in what authorities reported early Monday to be the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history after a gunman began shooting from the 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay.
In details about the shooting revealed at a press conference Monday afternoon, officials identified the gunman as Stephen Craig Paddock, a 64-year-old retired accountant from Mesquite, Nevada. The gunman killed himself as officers stormed his hotel room.
The injured local people were among more than two dozen SCV residents who attended Sunday’s ill-fated Route 91 Harvest Music Country Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada.
INJURED
LaPorte, who grew up in Newhall, attended the concert with her husband, Mitch, and her son, Logan, when a gunman opened fire on the crowd.
Her longtime friend, Bobbi Burrows, received a text message update on LaPorte’s condition from LaPorte’s husband.
As of 4:15 p.m. Monday, LaPorte was inside the intensive care unit of a hospital in Las Vegas awaiting surgery.
“She is responding well to treatment and, if there are no complications, she will heal fine,” Burrows told The Signal.
Neither LaPorte’s husband or son were injured.
Kim Peoples, the other local woman injured, went to the concert with two friends – Nicole Stegall and Melissa Gilman – both from Santa Clarita.
Although her friends were not physically hurt, according to Stegall’s husband, Dan, friends of Peoples reported Monday that she was recovering from a gunshot related injury to her leg.
“She apparently has shrapnel in her leg,” said Dan Stegall told The Signal Monday.
“I was on the phone with my wife when the shots were heard,” Stegall told The Signal Monday morning.
“Her two other friends had to run from the concert and took shelter in one of the other hotels,” he said.
PINNED DOWN
Valencia High School grad Rachel Roach who was at the concert, held a woman who was shot in the gunfire.
“There are no words to describe it,” Roach told The Signal.
Asked what happened to the woman she held dying in her arms, she said: “I don’t know, she was taken away from me.”
Roach, who attended the concert with eight SCV friends, said: “We took cover right away because they were saying there were possibly other shooters.
“It’s not something you think can happen to you,” she said. “This is going to take some time to come to terms with.”
When Rachel Roach’s mother heard from her daughter she called her friend Santa Clarita Valley resident Jane Bettencourt
“I received a frantic call,” Bettencourt said. “From the mother of a daughter who was there.”
The Valencia High School grad was reportedly with eight of her friends when at least one of them and others around them were shot, Bettencourt said.
Bettencourt recalled the phone call she received: “She (Valencia High School grad) called her mother and she said ‘Mom, there’s dead people all around me.’
“She said ‘I have a dying woman in my arms. She wants to call her husband on my phone so I’ve got to hang up,’” she said.
“All night I was on the phone with her mother, trying to calm her down,” Bettencourt said. “She (daughter) is traumatized.
“She told her mother she ran to the Hooters Hotel and stayed in a room with 10 people she didn’t know, sheltered,” Bettencourt said.
Bettencourt also received a call from her niece who apparently was at a bar at the concert when the people beside them (she and her husband) were shot in the head.
“My niece and her husband ran (from the concert) for two miles,” she said.
LOCAL DEPUTIES
Other local people at the ill-fated concert included at least five employees of the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station- four sworn deputies and one civilian, Shirley Miller, Sheriff’s spokeswoman said.
“There were some station personnel at the concert,” Miller told The Signal, noting she received no reports of any of those sheriff’s personnel being injured.
“Everything so far is checking out,” she said, noting the station took a roll call of all the local personnel Monday.
As well, as several off-duty members of the Los Angeles County Fire Department were also at the concert when a gunman opened fire on the crowd, Fire Department spokeswoman Vanessa Lozano said.
“Preliminary information indicates that three LACFD members were struck by gunfire and sustained non-life threatening injuries,” she wrote in a news release issued Monday.
It was not immediately known if any of the injured fire station personnel were from the Santa Clarita Valley.
“Due to privacy concerns, the names of these members will not be released,” Lozano said in the release.
“The LACOFD will continue to monitor the situation and provide support to our members and their families,” she said.
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