The Vegas Shooting Map Project
Over the last few months, a few individuals within the Las Vegas Shooting investigation community have been working to create a one-stop map of Las Vegas Village, The Strip and relevant surrounding areas. The map includes features such as videos linked to the location(s) they were filmed from, as well as the exact layout and landmarks of the concert venue from the night of October 1st, 2017.
The inspiration for the map came from Weg Oag when he was searching for a specific video that he could only remember by the location. When I spoke with Weg regarding the map he’s been such a pivotal figure in creating he stated of the experience, “It got me thinking if only there was a map I could use to find videos.”
From there, a brilliant resource for the community was born. Weg started building the Vegas Shooting Map on April 2nd. On April 20th, he opened up the opportunity for others in the community to assist with this monumental task in a YouTube live-stream.
Martin Field answered the call to assist with the Map Project despite never having worked on a project like this before. Martin saw the need for a tool such as the map due to the fact he saw himself and others getting turned around while watching YouTube videos from the night of the shooting. He liked the idea of a central hub for accessing videos, where the location the video was filmed from is shown in a clear format.
Martin sees the map as a research tool that will assist users in gaining familiarity with the area as well as more easily comparing various sounds created from various perspectives within Las Vegas. Martin has used his acute sense of hearing to help build the map, by working to identify hard to hear parts of the videos such as particular gunfire. Martin spends about 15 hours per week to working on the map project.
SRamirez, from the Las Vegas Shooting Archive (LVSA) YouTube channel also graciously lends his time to building the Vegas Shooting Map. LVSA has been an avid personal researcher for many years. It took the strange circumstances of the Las Vegas Shooting case for him to begin reaching out and sharing ideas with others. He says he wants to be a part of this project because he personally knows people that were directly affected by the shooting and he wants to work against the obvious lack of transparency from every agency involved.
He says his computer skills and experience with different types of software aid him considerably in his research for the map project. SRamirez says since he recently began helping with the map, he’s spent 5–6 hours a week on the map and will continue working on the map until it has reached its full potential.
Weg added many of the initial videos and landmarks himself. He determined which videos were most important and started with those. Weg is personally familiar with Las Vegas and the Strip, his familiarity with the area assists with having a real life view brought to the map.
The three member team communicates by email to discuss what should be added and how. They work together and bounce ideas off each other to work through any challenging tasks that present themselves.
One challenge the team runs into is identifying landmarks while trying to nail down the exact location that the video was taken from. However, as the map project progresses and more items and points of interest are added, the easier it gets to determine placement of videos. SRamirez has found a work-around for this sometimes daunting task by putting the video on super slow motion and taking detailed notes on any relevant images that may point to placement.
Another challenge is charting the routes for the videos where the individual recording is walking or driving. Watching this type of video multiple times can take an emotional toll on the viewer, as many times these videos are directly from those affected first-hand by the shooting. It places the viewer in the victim’s shoes in a way; it causes the viewer feel connected to the person and gain a sense of the panic, fear and sadness occurring in the recording.
Weg says he is grateful for the talents and ideas Martin and SRamirez contribute to the map project. He says Martin has vast familiarity with the various types of gunfire. This talent that Martin possesses led to the incorporation of his assessment of the gunfire into the map. This allows for the video to include a description of which volley of gun fire or single shot is heard in that particular video as well as the time the shots can be heard during the video.
Weg also speaks of SRamirez’s endless archive of videos related to the shooting. That catalog of videos aids in the map project being rich and detailed which will enable the full magnitude of the shooting to be witnessed by anyone using the map.
Sources such as the flyer used by attendees of the concert and a map that was used by employees that worked the event are used to verify the accuracy of the map. These three individuals have worked tirelessly to ensure it will be the closest it can possibly be to the exact layout of the venue for the Route 91 concert that night. The latest additions to the map are the aerial footage of the venue and CCTV from locations around the strip that were released on May 30th, as well as the footage from the top of Mandalay Bay that was released on June 6th.
The map also includes the locations of the victims that tragically lost their lives that October night. It stretches as far as the various hospitals where some of the victims were reported deceased. The all-encompassing attribute of this map lessens the need for individuals to reference multiple documents when researching certain aspects of the shooting.
The Vegas Shooting Map team will continue to update the map as more information is released. There is nothing that exists like the Vegas Shooting Map to date. Overall, the map project is and will continue to be an excellent way for users to gain perspective on the scale of the shooting. It is an outstanding resource for individuals researching the shooting to anyone that is simply striving to figure out what went so very wrong that night.
You can view the map at www.vegasshootingmap.com
