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Monday, Feb. 25, 2013 | 9:08 a.m.
LAS VEGAS — Variously known as an adult playground and Disneyland for grown-ups, Las Vegas brands itself as a place where tourists can enjoy a sense of edginess with no real danger. But a series of high-profile episodes of random violence amid the throngs of tourists is threatening Sin City's reputation as a padded room of a town where people can cut loose with no fear of consequences. A car-to-car shooting and fiery crash that killed two bystanders and an aspiring rapper Thursday followed a bizarre elevator stabbing and a movie theater parking lot shooting. Though crime has been falling ...
The Strip
Las Vegas Boulevard Las Vegas,
NV 89109
"sense of edginess with no real danger"?!
C'mon now, Las Vegas is a place that offers alcohol and gambling 24/7, needless to mention that it also offers drugs and prostitution under the table, what could ever possibly go wrong here? Haha
Las Vegas "come at your own risk"
ive been a several time a year las vegas visitor for the last 20 years. the biggest change ive seen that makes me feel less safe has been the increase of gang like young men, roaming the strip at night in groups usually 4 to 10 strong. even if these are nice polite young men who just happen to be face and neck tatted up, they still make you feel unsafe.
also it seems the night clubs attract a much different crowd than they did 10 years ago...they seem to cater to a much more agressive crowd than they used to...as a semi regular club goer (i used to go all the time, but the lines and bottle service make it not worth my time)i cant tell you how often you will see the stereotypical "pimp" living it up in a bottle service section with 10 to 20 young girls coming and going all night. the clubs are good with this as i guess these guys dont mind dropping 2 or 3 grand...of the money someone else earned...and these guys recruit all night long.
also the number of working girls has reached epic numbers, at every casino...i can only assume the police really dont want to actually stop prostitution, just ticket enough of these girls that it appears they are trying...a team of cops could easily arrest a thousand girls a week....get rid of the girls, and the rapper pimps will have less reason to hang out on the strip.
it has always seemed to me that the hotels want these girls roaming the casino at night so the mostly male customers wont feel they are at a weiner fest.
the strip hotels and clubs have grown used to the money...and that comes with a price..
the strip is more dangerous at night than it used to be, but without a army like police presence this is only going to get worse...
so far it hasnt affected my desire to come to vegas, but at some point you have to weigh the odds...every one does stupid things when drinking, now you have to make sure you dont look at someone the wrong way, you have to be aware of someone following you into the bathroom, its just getting more complicated to be on guard all the time.
i would have to say i always feel safe during the day, but at night, well now thats a different story...
this situation could be cleared up, but it would involve some profiling, and stepping on some rights...im not talking about gun control, im talking about people control, make the strip so unplesant for any a select few and it will be a better for the rest...is this fair, probably not, but few things are...
1. "Las Vegas is a place that offers alcohol and gambling 24/7" Yes, and it has for 80 years. That isn't the problem.
2. With the unfortunate exception of the taxicab driver and his passenger from last week's incident, the people involved in these incidents knew each other and/or had some prior connection to each other. Random they were not.
3. On private property, casinos should start aggressively dealing with trouble makers from the front door to the back door and everywhere in between.
4. In the public sector, Las Vegas should consider legalization, regulation, taxation. Prohibition does not work, and criminalization creates a criminal class.
I am on the Strip and in Downtown every day, and several nights a week. I generally feel as safe there (usually more so) as I do in any other large city. People make the same mistakes here as they do in Disneyland: they turn off their common sense and, metaphorically, step off the curb into the path of moving vehicles. They forget that this is still the real world, and real world precautions are required.
@jaymes4u..you are almost 100% correct. The type of people the clubs attract today are completely different than what it used to be on the strip. When I moved here permanately in 1999 you only had a few clubs on the strip. Club Ra, Studio 54, Rum Jungle and Club Rio (off strip) and I remember the HOB had an industry night club type atmosphere. The ghetto people would go to places like SRO, Drink and Eat Too, etc., which were clubs that were off of the strip. Now those smaller venues could never survive with the number of clubs that cater to anyone with some $$$ on the strip.
I tell friends and relatives who (infrequently now) visit to be off the Strip/out of the casino, or on your plane by 10pm. The days when the Strip was a (relatively speaking) safe place to be are over. Too many young wannabe thugs, drunks/drug addicts, hustlers, sidewalk hucksters and outright gangstas.
Walk past $100 craps table after midnight on a Wednesday through Saturday. The typical player is loud, foul-mouth urban trash whose every third word is "mutha****er". Where does this fine upstanding citizen get the money to roll $100 at a time? New York investment banker? Stock broker?
This town has changed and it isn't for the better.
The arrogance of Sheriff Gillespie and the message that he delivers should diminish when the casinos and the LVCVA realize that he has been indifferent to ALL types of crime on the Strip AND find a new candidate to support with their $$$.
You see---Metro has weekly meetings about "Action Crimes' BUT serious disorder, scams, and victimization of tourists don't RATE unless there is death or serious injury. Even then, these crimes can be manipulated by the type of crime that an officer/detective chooses to put on the crime report. So is crime really 'down' on the Strip? Ask for the stats and have them reviewed by independent professionals.
One group of organized pimps and prostitutes that preyed on tourists in Las Vegas was taken down in Louisiana by a task force because they were involved in credit card thefts and crimes. They even had the Feds involved. We would have to be dreaming to expect for this to happen in Las Vegas! This was the same group "Mr. Get Rich" that got the teenaged girl stabbed (dead)in the neck at the front entrance of Ballys. Oh yes, that was an 'anomaly' or an 'isolated' incident.
I've seen several 'visitors' beaten half to death by pimps at the 'finest' Strip hotels. I've also seen hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in money and property stolen from tourists by prostitutes...it was just tolerated and crime fighting cops were targeted instead of criminals. In fact, Gillespie's captains (McCarthy and Fasulo) 'tracked' me more than they track pimps and their cars, addresses, and the money trail. One night, Sgt. John Hayes used his entire squad to conduct a surveillance on a non-prostitute who had lunch with a uniformed cop...based on mere speculation and because he didn't like the cop. Hayes got the officer fired - for going to lunch!
There is plenty of police work that can be done to improve safety on the Strip. They should just read all of the e-mails, memos, recommendations, and files between me and my supervisor (former Lt. Hans Walters).
There is a much longer time-line of crime and violence on the Strip...
The Sun wrote about Metro's 'new' Pimp Investigation Team almost 4 years ago!! So had those P.I.T. bulls made any cases against Cherry or Harris?
I am sick to death of stuff happening on the Strip attributed to the City of Las Vegas. Everything south of Sahara IS NOT in the City of Las Vegas. Take a look at a county map. This mayhem was NOT in the City. Same with the Washington DC officials who stayed at the M Resort in HENDERSON and not in the City of Las Vegas. City of Las Vegas elected officials need to do more to disassociate the City from things that give the City a bad name. And don't say it's semantics. There are different fire departments, police, business licenses, etc., differentiating the City from County.
I don't live in the US but this is just as good as watching tv - cops vs baddies shows. First it was Dorner vs LAPD and now las vegas cops vs pimp. I recently visited both places and loved it. Will I go back. Oh yeah!
ICARE,great comments. We all know why the police don't want the real stats getting out how dangerous the strip is at night.
@chedeski...maybe you should take your tired old complaint straight to the top...when the strip casinos stop saying they are located in las vegas then maybe the rest of us will stop lumping every thing that happens las vegas as actually happening in las vegas...oh yeah, your first call should be to the las vegas convention office...hummm....what happens in clark county stays in clark county, this has a nice ring doesnt it!
The sheriff has his own T.V. Show. Showing how they patrol the strip looking for prostitutes and drunks. They never seem to be there when a real crime is committed.
By Hannah Dreier, Associated Press...
Hannah, do you want to look beyond the statistics and provide a fair and balanced story about crime on the Strip? Get in touch with the cops (current and former) who know the truth.