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More than 2,500 people have filed or threatened lawsuits against MGM, the parent company of the Mandalay Bay, a Las Vegas hotel and casino where a gunman rented a room and opened fire onto a country music festival in October.

The victims are looking to hold MGM responsible for the “deaths, injuries, and emotional distress resulting” from the attack.

MGM’s lawsuit, which sparked outrage on social media, said these claims “must be dismissed” because the security services it procured for the Route 91 Harvest country music festival were provided by Contemporary Services Corporation, who has been certified by the Department of Homeland Security “for protecting against and responding to acts of mass injury and destruction.” Those who use these approved services, MGM argued, are granted certain protections from liability under the 2002 Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies (SAFETY) Act.

Yet Las Vegas police have yet to determine a motive for the attack that killed 58 and wounded hundreds of others, nor have they ruled it an act of terrorism, raising questions about MGM’s legal action.

DHS officials didn’t immediately respond to a request from the PBS NewsHour about MGM’s lawsuit.

 

Here’s what we know about MGM’s claims, the lawsuits and where the investigation into the mass shooting stands.

What is the SAFETY Act?

After 9/11, “the private sector was extremely reluctant to deploy security technologies and services in civilian settings due to the enormous liability risks involved,” DHS said in a fact sheet.

The SAFETY ACT, enacted in 2002, was a way to encourage private companies to deploy anti-terrorism technologies without an overriding fear of being held responsible.

It limits a company’s liability in claims that follow a terror attack, so long as that company used services certified by Homeland Security.

Those services include cybersecurity technologies, crisis management systems and blast mitigation materials. Also on the list? Venue security.

In the case of MGM, those certified services were provided by a third party — Contemporary Services Corporation.

According to the DHS SAFETY Act website, the agency certified services provided by the Contemporary Services Corporation — physical security, access control and crowd management, among others — in April 2017, months before the Las Vegas shooting.

MGM said in its filing that the defendants’ lawsuits “implicate the services provided by CSC” — and not those provided by MGM — “because they implicate security at the concert, for example security training, emergency response, evacuation, and adequacy of egress.”

Was the Las Vegas shooting ruled an act of terrorism?

No.

The gunman, Stephen Paddock, shot from the windows of his 32nd-floor Mandalay Bay hotel room onto an Oct. 1, 2017, open-air concert packed with thousands of attendees. Paddock killed 58 concertgoers and injured hundreds of others in the attack. He killed himself before authorities gained entry into his hotel room.

But about nine months after the mass shooting, Las Vegas authorities have yet to declare Paddock’s attack an act of terrorism. This is because police have not determined a clear motive. (And, it should be noted, experts have debated when to label an event an act of terror, too.)

But the investigation has uncovered many details about Paddock, his preparation before the attack, how he set up the hotel room for the shooting, how Las Vegas officers responded to the shooting that night, and which weapons he used, among other details. Police believe Paddock is the lone suspect in the shooting.

Still, his motive remains unknown to investigators. According to Las Vegas authorities, that answer may never come.

Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo told News 3 in June that as the investigation nears its end, he’s doubtful a motive will materialize.

“At this point, it’s no,” Lombardo said. “I don’t see anything in the near future that would change my statement,” he added. The sheriff also said “there’s some information that we believe that his mental state was degrading.”

The rest of the story:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/n...ng-victims-explained

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They need to determine the amount of security people the cooperation had on duty at the time, and then get an estimate for how many people were at the hotel, and at the concert next door at the time, and then go to say 3 fire marshals and have them determine if the amount of security they had on the scene was enough to theoretically be able to prevent what happened, in the case they amount was insufficient, then a lawsuit for improper certification should be filed if that is a possible thing to file, and then once that is settled, then a lawsuit might could move forward against the hotel. Sadly all that would take 4 years under our current legal system.

It's sad that people will use things like this to get money. People used to say they considered themselves lucky to have survived and go on their way. Now they want money. There are some cases where the negligence is so blatant that they are begging for lawsuits. The "Duck boat" is looking like an example of that. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna893456

Last edited by giftedamateur

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