Survivor of Las Vegas massacre reacts to TX, OH mass shootings: 'Something needs to change'
As the nation reeled from two mass shootings within 24 hours in Texas and Ohio, a woman who said she survived the Las Vegas mass shooting described the killings as a never-ending cycle.
"I looked at my phone and saw that it happened again, and all I could think was how could it happen twice in one day? And it's the third one in a week" Melissa Fierro said.
The first attack came Saturday at a busy shopping area in El Paso, Texas, leaving at least 20 people dead and 28 injured, including two children. Law enforcement officials identified the suspect as 21-year-old Patrick Crusius of Allen, Texas. Crusis was charged with capital murder, and the El Paso district attorney's office will seek the death penalty.
That was followed by another shooting in a nightlife district in Dayton, Ohio, which claimed nine lives.
The suspected gunman, 24-year-old Connor Stephen Betts, of Bellbrook, Ohio, is also dead, authorities said. He was fatally shot by responding officers. Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said he was wearing body armor, carrying a .223-caliber rifle and had additional high-capacity magazines with him.
Authorities say the suspect's sister, 22-year-old Megan Betts, was killed in the shooting.
"It's just getting more and more common, and something needs to change," Fierro said. "My heart goes out to all of those people because I know the terror that they're feeling, and the victims and the families that are never gonna see those people again because somebody just decided that they wanted to do this."
Fierro, who was shot in the shoulder in 2017, said she's still healing from the Las Vegas massacre that left 58 people dead and more than 850 injured.
"Waking up and seeing the news, I wish people understood it's more than just this cluster of who was there; it ripples. It affects people who have gone through it before, it affects the families of the people around you, it changes everything - even when you survive and you make it out," Fierro said.
