Another Shooting on Las Vegas Strip Leaves One Hospitalized, Suspect Arrested

One man was hospitalized and a suspect has been arrested in a shooting Sunday night on the Las Vegas Strip. This is the latest in several recent gun incidents on or near the Strip.

The shooting Sunday at about 11 pm involved a fight among five to 10 men on a sidewalk between the LINQ and Flamingo hotel-casinos, according to news accounts. One man pulled a handgun out, firing a shot and hitting the victim in the upper torso, police said. The victim was hospitalized in critical but stable condition.

Early Monday, the California Highway Patrol arrested a suspect, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The suspect was being held in a California jail, awaiting extradition to Nevada.

For several hours after the shooting, the Flamingo hotel-casino was on lockdown.

Andrew Schilinski, a visitor from Florida, told the Review-Journal guests at the hotel could not use stairwells or elevators for about three hours while police looked for the suspect. Schilinski told the newspaper “a free-for-all” with no social-distancing took place once guests were allowed on the elevators.

The Flamingo is one of the most historic properties in Southern Nevada. It was opened in late 1946 under the direction of mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. The Flamingo has been at the same site on the Strip since then, though none of the original buildings remain.

Sunday’s shooting was at least the fourth gun incident in a little more than a week on or near the Las Vegas Strip.

In a shooting last Tuesday, in the valet area at the Aria hotel-casino. She was hospitalized and released. According to social media posts, the shooting involved a dispute at a birthday party for the rapper MoneyBagg Yo. He denied on a social media site that the incident had anything to do with him or his party.

As recently as Saturday, three people were hospitalized in at the off-Strip Stage Door Casino.

These episodes follow a large fight earlier this month at another Strip resort, Wynn Las Vegas. This melee caused an estimated $15,000 in damage at the property.

A Wynn Resorts spokesman later said the company planned to raise room rates and hire more security. The company also filed a lawsuit against 20 unknown men and women involved in the fight.

After the shooting at the Aria, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said during a television interview that these incidents seem to have resulted from the “bad combination” of people drinking or doing drugs and looking for a good time.

Lombardo is head of the combined city-county Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

Police in recent weeks have made more than 1,100 arrests and confiscated more than 60 guns in downtown Las Vegas and on the Strip, the sheriff said. The Strip is outside Las Vegas city limits.

Authorities reported last week that aggravated assaults are up 29 percent year to date on the Strip and nearby areas, according to the Review-Journal.

Police have vowed to step up their presence in the area.