The Las Vegas metro area is growing again, welcoming more than 100,000 new residents in the last three years.
So, many newcomers know little about the sometimes odd, sometimes violent events that make up Las Vegas’ colorful history.
The Holyfield-Tyson double-ear biting; the last mob hit; the Rodney King riots; Jessica Williams; Operation G-Sting; Sen. John Ensign's resignation; the Skinhead Murders; Downtown Project; and more.
Joining us for a Lightning Round of memories are a group of journalists who helped document that history, bringing with them more than 100 years of covering our community.
Bob Stodal is a broadcast news legend who help bring modern TV news coverage to our community and today is a contributor for KNPR’s State of Nevada.
John L. Smith is a contributor and commentator for KNPR who was the Review-Journal’s premiere columnist for 30 years.
George Knapp is a longtime television investigative journalist and talk-radio host. His work has been recognized with Murrow, Peabody, and Emmy awards.
The story: Water and Growth
Landsat view of Las Vegas & Lake Mead - an explosion in growth comparing these 1984 and 2007 photos/V-rider/Flickr
Background: Starting in the late 80s through the 90s and even into the early 2000s, Southern Nevada saw a tremendous amount of growth. According to the Census Bureau, 463,087 people called Clark County home in 1980 by 2010 1,951,269 did. New neighborhoods seemed to pop up overnight and thousands of people poured into the valley every month.
Knapp: The story I’ve covered the most times and I consider the most significant is the two-headed monster of growth and water. And those two topics are inextricably linked.
By the mid-90s, you started to see declines in quality of life here because of the growth. We’re growing in every direction, building houses and casinos as fast as we could. The schools and the roads could never keep up.
We started to do stories about whether the brakes should be put on growth and that led us to water stories because the water agencies… were enablers in this growth. You’d hear them say ‘There is nothing we can do. We can’t stop this’ and well that’s not true. They could have done it but they chose not to. I think they worked hand in hand with the development industry and with the casinos, who wanted to go, go, go and they just found a way to make it happen.
The story: The murder of Tupac Shakur
A black BMW, riddled with bullet holes, is seen in a Las Vegas police impound lot in a file photo from Sunday, Sept. 8, 1996. (AP Photo/Lennox McLendon)
Background: On Sept. 7, 1996, rapper Tupac Shakur was shot while riding with Death Row Records chairman Marion "Suge" Knight along Las Vegas Boulevard at Tropicana Avenue. Shakur was taken to University Medical Center where he died six days later. His murder has never been solved but there has been speculation for years about who shot and killed him.
Knapp: Tupac was immensely popular. He had a lot of followers and devoted fans that people didn’t want to believe that he was really dead. You still have rumors today that he’s alive, maybe living on an island with Elvis.
People don’t want their idols or icons to die but he’s dead. I think we’re going to find out more in the next month or so about the circumstances of his death and what his final days were like.
That certainly put a black mark on Las Vegas for a lot of people. They don’t believe the official narrative. They don’t believe it went down as the police reported it.
The story: The MGM Grand hotel fire
By Clark County Gov, via Wikimedia Commons
Background: On November 21, 1980, a fire started in a restaurant at the MGM Grand Hotel, which is now Bally’s Hotel-Casino at the corner of Flamingo Road and Las Vegas Boulevard. Because of a lack of sprinklers and out-of-date construction materials, smoke and fire raced through the hotel. Eighty-seven people died in the fire from the flames and smoke inhalation. The scenes of people trapped in upper-floor balconies being airlifted to safety haunted the country.
Stoldal: It was sad. A tragedy that unfolded before our eyes literally, when you saw the remains of the human beings.
There were reports that the town was going to evaporate because we weren’t going to recover from this. Instead, we became the model to the world for fire prevention.
The Hilton fire [which was just a few months later in February 1981] and the MGM fire really changed Las Vegas in a positive way.
Smith: When you go back and study the legislation that was forced through. Despite all of that tragedy, it still took an effort and a very public airing of what was needed in terms of not just fire safety going forward but new construction.
The MGM fire and the Hilton fire… those all played into essentially compelling with the exception of a few progressives guys like Joe Neal and Bill Hernstadt… they were really leaders in airing and making very public the need for these changes and then everyone else of course got religion. They saw that the public was on their side and even the casino industry got together and tried to cash in on that good will.
The story: Mob controls Las Vegas casinos
Background: As documented in the movie “Casino,” members of the mob built, controlled and skimmed money from several casinos along the Las Vegas Strip. The mob was eventually pushed out of the city’s main industry through stronger gaming oversight, the arrest and prosecution of some of the top mob figures and the arrival of corporate America to Nevada’s casino business.
Knapp: I remember in 1981 when I first started [at Channel 8] on the days that I wasn’t covering dawn of the duck or something else Stoldal assigned me, I would do a mob story. We would do mob stories every day. Everyone on the staff covered mob because there was always a gaming control board hearing, or a court appearance by Tony Spilotro, or a Black Book procedure against Lefty Rosenthal. The mob stuff was everyone’s beat because there was so much going on.
It was sort of the beginning of the end for Spilotro and his crew. And the mob guys level of control of the casinos and the skimming operation.
Tony Spilotro mug shot/FBI
The story: Riots following the Rodney King verdict in Los Angeles
Background: In April of 1992, four white Los Angeles Police Department officers were acquitted of beating motorist Rodney King, who was black. Video of the beating sparked a debate around the country about police brutality and racial injustice. Following the jury’s decision, violence broke out around Los Angeles and several other cities, including Las Vegas. Eleven square miles of Las Vegaswere cordoned off after rioters set fires, beat bystanders and looted businesses.
Knapp: In a sense, it is amazing that it took that long. You think back about the Westside, which is what we called it in those days. 80 percent, 85 percent of the African Americans in the whole valley were in one little area. They didn’t even have a supermarket. There was police brutality and unfair treatment. There were still remnants of discrimination in the schools and segregation.
When it exploded, it was huge!
No one was quite sure how far it might go. I don’t think anyone should have been surprised because of how the African-American community had been treated up to that point. The community was frightened.
Stoldal: Sometimes as a reporter you feel like you’re able to go into a situation and have your press hat on and think nobody is going to do anything.
In that case, I remember going over there with my camera and just driving the neighborhood and parking and walking around. The next thing I knew there were rocks being thrown at me and at the car. It was like, ‘don’t you know who I am? I’m a reporter. I’m here to cover that.’
That was really a piece of reality that stuck with me for a long time.
The Story: Operation G-Sting
Background: In May of 2003, the FBI started a series of raids on Las Vegas strip clubs owned by Michael Galardi. Federal agents had been investigating for some time bribes paid by Galardi to Clark County commissioners and city councilman in San Diego. When the dust settled three years later, two commissioners: Mary Kincaid-Chauncey and Dario Herrera were convicted and sent to prison, another Erin Kennypled guilty and cooperated with investigators, former commissioner Lance Malonealso pleaded guilty and was sent to prison and one San Diego city councilman was convicted.
Knapp: Las Vegas has a well-deserved reputation for corruption, not just Las Vegas but the state of Nevada. We’re right up there with Chicago, Washington and New Orleans. It’s a small town and so many ways it still is.
The FBI started to look at the county commission and whether or not they were in bed with Mike Galardi and strip club industry. You had wildly varying votes on the part of the county commission about seemingly trying to get the strip club industry under control, keep it bottled up. As we would learn later, they were actually taking votes that were meant to help one particular operator and that was Mike Galardi.
Lance Malone, who had been a one-term county commissioner, ended up going to work for Mike Galardi and he became sort of conduit for money and other kinds of favors. Galardi’s clubs became hangouts for prosecutors, federal and local. People from the DA’s office were there on a regular basis, getting lap dances and free drinks. I think Galardi had the idea that he was going to generate a lot of good will for himself moving forward.
He started handing out money and he found a lot of acceptance on the part of elected county commissioners.
They were taking bribes. I mean big time. Not only straight cash but sexual favors things of that sort. Visits from dancers. It was just about as sleazy and slimy as it gets.
The story: The hostage situation with Patrick McKenna
Background: In August, 1979, McKenna, a convicted rapist and murder, along with two other men being housed in the Clark County Detention Center and awaiting transfer to prison were able to get the guards’ service weapons. They held guards hostage for three days, while Metro Police and Bob Stoldal tried to negotiate a surrender.
Stoldal: It is not a fond remembering. The inmates had taken over the Clark County jail. They were holding several of the jailers hostage. They started making demands. I happened to be working at Channel 8 that Saturday morning. When I picked up the phone, it was Pat McKenna and he wanted a neutral person to come down and be an intermediary.
For the next three days, I would go up to the second floor with food or milk, take back notes and go back and forth.
I remember during the period of time, during the second day, one of the negotiators grabbed me by the collar and almost slapped me in the face and says: ‘You’re not John Wayne! These guys have guns up there. You’ve got to be careful! You’ve got to be on your toes!’ I thought, ‘If I’m not going to think I’m John Wayne, then I’m not going to go up and look these guys straight in the eye and do what you need to do.’
It was a very emotional time. We were up three or four days in a row. Patrick McKenna ended up killing at least one of his compatriots. And he’s on death row in Ely.
The story: The Ted Binion murder trial
Sandy Murphy waves to her parents during her arraignment on Tuesday, June 29, 1999, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Laura Rauch)
Background: On Sept. 17 1998, son of casino legend Benny Binion, Ted Binion, was found dead in his home from an apparent drug overdose. Six months after his death, the medical examiner determined that he did not die of a drug overdose. The coroner’s office reclassified it as a homicide in 1999. Sandy Murphy, Binion’s live-in girlfriend, and her lover Rick Tabish were charged with murdering Binion and stealing silver from his vault near Pahrump.
After a two month trial, the jury convicted them both of murder. However, three years later, the State Supreme Court overturned their convictions because of an error in the instructions to the jury by presiding Judge Joseph Bonaventure. The two were put on trial again and the jury found them not guilty of murder, but they were convicted of burglary and grand larceny in connection with the silver.
Knapp: The murder of Ted Binion was front-page news and lead-story news on television for months and months. It had all kinds of interesting elements. Sandy Murphy, sex pot sort of a gal, who did a lot of shopping was just made for TV tabloid news, who was living with this much older man, Ted Binion, one of the heirs to the Binion fortune. Sandy had a secret boyfriend. A guy who befriended Ted was around lot and doing business with him on various levels.
Ted Binion had a pretty bad drug habitat ends up dead. Was it a drug overdose or was it a murder?
This was a media driven trial. The first trial ended with conviction. David Roger, who was then an assistant DA, and David Walls really made a name for themselves. It was covered by everybody in town. But it seemed a little specious. The conviction seemed a little specious. There wasn’t direct evidence that these two had done it and eventually it was over turned, which became an even bigger story.
(Editor's note: This story originally aired in July 2016)
Bob Stoldal, KNPR contributor; George Knapp, investigative reporter, Channel 8 KLAS-TV; John L. Smith, KNPR contributor
