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One dead, 37 injured after car plows into crowd on Las Vegas Strip

Las Vegas police say that a woman intentionally drove her car onto a crowded Strip sidewalk multiple times Sunday night, killing at least one person and injuring 37 others, six of them critically [It's a miracle more weren't killed]

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Lt. Dan McGrath said the woman in her 20s, whose name has not been publicly released, "went up and off these streets, two or possibly three times." The woman is being interviewed and is having her blood drawn for a sobriety test, police said. She is being held in the Clark County Jail with charges pending.

The incident occurred at around 6:40 p.m. local time (9:40 p.m. EST). The woman's car, a 1996 Oldsmobile, was in the northbound lanes of Las Vegas Boulevard near Bellagio Way when it drove up onto the sidewalk in front of the Paris Hotel & Casino and struck pedestrians, police Lt. Peter Boffelli said. Police confirmed the person killed was an adult, but would not identify the victim further.

"This is a huge tragedy that has happened on our Strip," Boffelli told reporters at a news conference.

Despite the apparently deliberate nature of the crash, LVMPD Deputy Chief Brett Zimmerman said authorities "know this was not an act of terrorism."

The incident took place in one of the busiest areas of the Strip, across from the famous dancing water fountains of the Bellagio hotel-casino. Zimmerman said investigators were examining security footage from the hotels and casinos "to get a detailed idea of what occurred."

Lt. McGrath said the car was registered in Oregon and the driver had recently moved to the area. After the crash, the car headed east on Flamingo Road before it was found at a hotel, McGrath said. The driver was taken into custody at the hotel, police said. A 3-year-old child was in the vehicle with her but was not hurt, Zimmerman said.

Justin Cochrane, a property manager from Santa Barbara, Calif., said he was having dinner at a sidewalk restaurant outside the Paris when the incident took place.

The car appeared to be going 30 to 40 mph when it first hit the pedestrians on Las Vegas Boulevard, Cochrane said. "It was just massacring people," he said.

The vehicle then went farther down the road and drove back into another crowd of pedestrians on the sidewalk, he said.

Cochrane said he couldn't understand why the car went into the crowd a second time. "Why would it slow to go around and then accelerate again?" he said. "I thought it's a crazy person."

Cochrane said he saw children and adults injured and on the ground as the car drove away.

Joel Ortega, 31, of Redlands, Calif., said he and his wife, Carla, were in Las Vegas for the weekend and found themselves blocked from walking on the sidewalk toward the Paris Hotel & Casino. They could see police investigating about a block away from the scene of the crash.

The passage of Proposition 63 (now known as the Mental Health Services Act or MHSA) in November 2004, provides the first opportunity in many years for the California Department of Mental Health (DMH) to provide increased funding, personnel and other resources to support county mental health programs and monitor progress toward statewide goals for children, transition age youth, adults, older adults and families. The Act addresses a broad continuum of prevention, early intervention and service needs and the necessary infrastructure, technology and training elements that will effectively support this system.

This Act imposes a 1% income tax on personal income in excess of $1 million. Statewide, the Act was projected to generate approximately $254 million in fiscal year 2004-05, $683 million in 2005-06 and increasing amounts thereafter. Much of the funding will be provided to county mental health programs to fund programs consistent with their local plans.

Wake up, america, start giving a shit about the broken people.