October 03, 2017
A vigil organized to honor the more than five dozen lives lost during Sunday night's mass shooting in Las Vegas will be held in Philadelphia.
CeaseFire PA, an advocacy group organized to prevent gun violence, will host a "Standing with Las Vegas" event Tuesday from 6-8 p.m. at Thomas Paine Plaza.
Mayor Jim Kenney is scheduled to speak during the event, mayoral spokesperson Lauren Hitt confirmed. Fifty-three people are "going" and more than 200 have marked that they are "interested" in the event on the vigil's Facebook page as of Tuesday morning.
“We don't want this to just be about grieving and mourning,” Shira Goodman, executive director of CeaseFire PA, told PhillyVoice on Tuesday. "This also needs to be a call to action."
Goodman said that Gov. Tom Wolf, Attorney General Josh Shapiro and Council President Darrell Clarke are also expected to speak alongside Kenney.
Stephen Paddock, 64, has been identified as the shooter in the incident, which claimed at least 59 lives and left 525 people injured. Authorities say Paddock opened fire on a crowd of festivalgoers while inside his 32nd-floor room in Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on Sunday. A Pennsylvania wrestling and Little League coach has been identified as one of the victims.
"Philadelphia grieves with Las Vegas this morning," Kenney said on social media Monday. "It's an unspeakable tragedy for the hundreds of families impacted and for our nation."
Details on Tuesday's vigil can be found here.
