Las Vegas law enforcement is unable to give a motive why Lakeisha Holloway drove for half a mile on The Strip, hitting, running over, and killing people. It was intentional. All four wheels were on the sidewalk. She acknowledges a body bouncing off the windshield, yet didn’t stop. Bystanders banged on the window and tried to open the door in desperate attempts to get her to stop.
She was homeless, living in her car with her 3 yo daughter. Plenty of help is available here in Vegas for indigent mothers with small children. I’m sure the Salvation Army would have helped her. I tend to think this was some kind of deranged, bizarre mental breakdown (and that she should not get out of prison for a long time.) Three years ago she was given an award in Portland for breaking the cycle of homelessness after her apparently alcoholic mother essentially abandoned her at age 15.
Lakeisha Holloway, 24, said security guards ran her off everywhere she stopped to get some sleep in her car with her 3-year-old daughter. She ended up on the Strip, “a place she did not want to be,” and would not explain why she drove onto the sidewalk, according to the arrest record.
The Metropolitan Police Department is framing its investigation of the crash as an intentional act, but Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said at a Monday morning press conference that police still do not know the woman’s motives.
“To my knowledge, there have been no conclusions reached on whether the driver was drugged up, drunk or was experiencing some sort of psychotic episode,” Vassiliadis said. “But I think it was a one-off event that could happen anywhere, any time.”
Police don’t believe it was terrorism but are not ruling it out until more is known about Holloway.
Las Vegas law enforcement and paramedics did a superb job, responding very quickly, and helping the victims.