Following last week’s deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, 58 white crosses now line the world-famous “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign as a memorial honoring the lives lost.
CNN reports that some of the crosses have memorabilia representative of Vegas, like a cowboy hat, while others have printed selfies glowing from lit candles. Every cross also features the names of victims killed in Sunday’s shooting.
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Driving nearly 2,000 miles from Chicago to install and build the crosses on the patch of grass in Vegas, retired carpenter Greg Zanis is known to make them for those we have lost.
“This row of crosses will show the severity of what really happened there,” Zanis said. “More so than numbers and pictures in the paper.”
Last year, Zanis drove 1,000 miles to Orlando with 49 crosses to pay tribute to the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting. He has been doing it every year since finding the body of his dead father-in-law, killed by a gunshot wound to the head nearly 20 years ago.
To cope, the 66-year-old builds crosses and has done it for other senseless shootings, like Columbine high school, the Colorado theatre and erected hundreds of them in Chicago during 2016 and 2017 following the city’s increase in gun violence.
He has since created more than 20,000 crosses for tragedies throughout the country, keeping his offer of compassion alive and well.
“I don’t have any answers, but this is just me doing something, showing that I care, showing that I love them,” Zanis told WGN earlier this year.
The crosses will be up for 40 days.
On Oct. 1, domestic terrorist Stephen Paddock opened fire on Route 91 Harvest festival concertgoers from his hotel suite at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, killing 58 people and injuring 500 more. While the motive for the shooting remains unclear, police have said it was “obviously premeditated.”
