2023-12-08 14:45:14
LAS VEGAS — On the eve of a much celebrated, first-ever NBA In-Season Tournament final four, the host city struggled with a tragic shooting on a college campus just a few streets from where Thursday’s basketball games will be played.
The Indiana Pacers were just finishing practice Wednesday at T-Mobile Arena, located on the Las Vegas Strip, when reports surfaced about an active shooter situation nearby at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The Los Angeles Lakers were sitting on their plane, bound for Las Vegas, idling on the tarmac at the time.
By the time Los Angeles, the last of the four In-Season finalists, made its way to the arena, the suspect had died after a confrontation with police, according to The New York Times. Three people were killed and another critically injured after the shooter opened fire, officials said.
LeBron James, the Lakers superstar and an outspoken advocate for stricter gun control policies in the U.S., was unaware of reported fatalities when he took the podium Wednesday afternoon.
When he learned of them, he offered condolences to families and friends of victims, and then said: “We’re the only ones who keep dealing with this same story, the same conversation every single time it happens — and it just continues to happen.
“The ability to get a gun and ability to, you know, to do these things over and over and over, and there’s been no change, is literally ridiculous,” James said. “It makes no sense that we continue to lose innocent lives on campuses, in schools and shopping markets and, you know, movie theaters and all that type of stuff. It’s just, it’s ridiculous, just ridiculous.”
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