4th year since Las Vegas massacre: 'Be there for each other'

LAS VEGAS (AP) — People who are healing and some still struggling gathered Friday to remember those who died and were injured during the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history four years ago on the Las Vegas Strip.

“I was wounded. Those physical wounds have healed,” said Dee Ann Hyatt, whose daughter also was wounded and whose brother died in the Oct. 1, 2017, shooting. “But the lasting scars for our family remain.”

Hyatt spoke to several hundred people during a sunrise ceremony at the Clark County Government Center in Las Vegas.

She remembered her slain brother, Kurt von Tillow, a trucker from Northern California, before a screen at an outdoor amphitheater that displayed photos of the dead. Fifty-eight people were killed that night, and two others died later. More than 850 were injured.

“We continue to live the impact of all that happened that night, four years later,” Hyatt said. “People thrive and people struggle to live with the physical and mental pain, and our lives are forever changed.”

The morning memorial featured a song, “Four Years After,” sung by Matt Sky, that was composed for the anniversary by Mark R. Johnson and released with multi-Grammy award winner Alan Parsons.

The event was the first of several scheduled Friday in Las Vegas and elsewhere, including a livestream to California’s Ventura County hosted by a support group called “So Cal Route 91 Heals.” The group also planned an afternoon ceremony at a park in Thousand Oaks.

Tennille Pereira, director of the Vegas Strong Resiliency Center, a Las Vegas program set up to support those affected by the shooting, noted that about 60% of tickets sold to the fateful concert were purchased by California residents.

The names of the dead will be read beginning at 10:05 p.m., the time the shooting...