Never Break the Chain

By Kimberly Gasuras

Growing up in a multicultural home with a Greek immigrant father and a mom from Virginia was interesting, but nothing could have prepared Kimberly Gasuras for a night of horror as she waited to hear back from her parents and her son who were hiding from an active shooter in Las Vegas. To keep her mind occupied, Kimberly began reading a book written by her Aunt Helen from discussions she had in the past with Kimberly's Grandma Greek. That book inspired Kimberly to delve further into her family history and to learn more about the hardships, triumphs, and tragedies that immigrants faced in the 1950s and those who are still facing those same struggles today. By reading Kimberly's story about her family, you may very well be able to learn more about your own since the United States is a nation of immigrants.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Turn the Page Publishing House, LLC
• Release date: Nov 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781735625805

Book preview

Prologue

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As I read the text message, my heart dropped.

There’s a shooting. We’re hiding in a basement.

My son, usually one to use correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling, sent a second message that I could barely make out.

Weeee hiding in the base of Tropicana. Everyone is running and screaming.

Where are mom and dad? My fingers were shaking as I typed the words.

In here with us. There are 12 of us. Yιαγιά tripped.

My mom fell? My heart was in my throat by this point. I asked him for more details about the shooter.

We don’t know. It was an automatic weapon. Call the police, phone won’t work. We’re hiding in base of Tropicana, in the back hallway. We’re blocking the doors. Ok the alarms are going off.

It was 1:30 a.m. and I was at my daughter’s house with no cable television. Just Netflix. I could not watch the news and Google on my phone was not giving me anything about a shooting in Las Vegas. I hurried up the stairs to check on my three-year-old grandson, Brayden, who was sound asleep. Kiana was at the hospital with my four-year-old granddaughter, Dariana, who was sick and running a fever which is the reason I was on babysitting duty that night.

I called my brother three times before he answered.

Mom, dad, and Kyle are hiding in the Tropicana. There is an active shooter, I screamed into the phone.

He was stunned and turned on the TV. He said there was nothing on the news. As a news reporter for the past two decades, I knew that since this was just unfolding, the reporters in Las Vegas would be racing to the scene, but it had only been a few minutes since it began.

I pulled up Twitter on my phone and there were already people posting videos from the country music festival that I would later find out was the target of the shooter, who had been perched up in a window on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino.

My son was calling on the other line, so I hung up from my brother to answer his call.

Kyle was whispering and telling me to call the police to let them know they were now in the theater area of the Tropicana.

I hung up quickly and Googled the number for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

I called and got a recording in both English and Spanish. I punched 2 for dispatch and was immediately put on hold. I felt like the walls were closing in around me and I needed a cigarette. I headed out to the front porch and lit one up, my hands trembling from the cold, and my nerves. I took a drag off a Winston as I listened to an instrumental only version of a song I did not recognize on the other end of the line. After a few minutes, I hung up and dialed my local police.

Bucyrus Police Department, the woman on the other line said. I did not recognize her voice as one of the dispatchers I knew well from the hundreds of times I had to call for information about breaking news.

This is Kim Gasuras and I live in Bucyrus. My son and my parents are hiding in a room of the Tropicana in Las Vegas because there is an active shooter. They told me to call the police and I can’t get through. Do you have a direct number I can call them on, I said, trying to control my shaky voice and speak clearly into my cell phone.

Yes, Kim, let me look it up for you, she said with the distinct sound of concern in her voice.

A beep sounded in my ear. I looked at the phone and Kyle was calling again.

My son is calling on the other line, I said urgently.

You need to get that. Take his call then call me back. I will have the number for you, she said.

My son sounded so frightened.

We still don’t know if there is a shooter in the Tropicana or not. They have moved us to a huge conference room, Kyle said then quickly hung up.

I called the dispatcher back and the number she gave me was the same one I had already called. I tried it but was put on hold again.

I pulled up several different news sites on my phone and reporters from newspapers and news stations were on the scene by that point. It was clear that the police were on top of the situation and that one shooter was dead but all the hotels and casinos in the area were still on lockdown until they determined if there were more shooters or bombs planted in the area.

An agonizing hour passed as I checked Twitter and of course, had to set some guy straight. He had tweeted that the whole thing was staged to push forward the idea that Democrats want to take his guns. I tweeted back to him, Shut the fuck up. My parents and my son are hiding from an active shooter, people are dead, and this has nothing to do with your guns.  I ended up with tons of people agreeing with me, and he never responded.

Kiana came home with Dariana, who was diagnosed with croup.

Yιαγιά, Pappaw, Kyle and Marcus are hiding from an active mass shooter, I told her.

What? What can we do? I am scared, Kiana said as she held Dariana a little tighter in her arms.

I told her everything I knew to that point, kissed Dariana on her forehead and told her I love her, then left to make the short walk to my house down the street.

It was cold. I wrapped my coat snuggly around me as I walked, my head spinning from horrible thoughts. What if my parents and my son are killed tonight? Who are these people, these cowards, that shoot people for no reason? Why was this happening?

I prayed for protection for them and everyone else affected by this horrible act of hatred as I unlocked my front door and went inside my dark house. I flipped on a few lights as I headed to the bathroom to get ready for bed, although I knew I would not be able to sleep.

I made my way up to my bedroom and turned on the TV to one of the 24-hour news channels. They were covering the shooting.

I was home for about 30 minutes when mom called me crying. The SWAT team had come into the conference room and demanded that everyone put their hands in the air.

They put their guns in our faces. It scared me because I knew if someone made any sudden move, they were prepared to shoot, she said. They brought a guy through from the back part of the casino who had been shot in the head. They were carrying him around their shoulders.

My parents and everyone else in the casino were searched for weapons or explosives.

It was scary but necessary. We even had to take off our shoes. They searched each person in the huge conference room we are in. They put us here. The place is set up for some sort of event for tomorrow morning and there are bottles of water with each place setting. They said we can drink them, and I am so glad. Our mouths are so dry from our nerves, mom said, her voice trembling. There are a lot of people in here with us, the entire casino. We are all drinking the bottles of water. No one is allowed to leave this room until they tell us we can. They told us the man with the bullet wound was shot outside and ran into the casino for cover.

She said she would call me back as soon as she could.

I looked over at my small, white bookcase in the corner of my bedroom and spotted the book that my Great Aunt Helen had compiled from her conversations with my Grandma Greek, my dad’s mom. She was technically my Yιαγιά, the name for Grandma in Greek, but my brother and I always called her Grandma Greek and our mom’s mother, Mabel Rimmer, was always just Grandma. My mom took on the name of Yιαγιά, even though she is not Greek, when my son was born, and I am Nana to my five grandchildren.

My Grandma Greek’s name, spelled Constantina or Kostantina as the Greek versions, means steadfast which is very fitting for her as she was the rock for my dad, his siblings, and my Grandpa Nick. In America, her name translates to Constance and the American people who knew her called her Connie. I have cousins named after her who go by the names of Tina or Dina.

I had skimmed through the book before but had never actually read it after my cousin gave everyone in the family a copy a few years ago. This moment felt like a really good time to read it in an effort to keep my mind off of what could be going down in Vegas.

I picked up the book that Aunt Helen had titled, A Book of Memories, Love and Courage. I laid down on my bed and began to read through it, taking in the stories and the photos.

Aunt Helen wrote that the idea for the family book came from my dad’s sister, Effie. She knew Aunt Helen had many in-depth conversations with Grandma Greek over the years and she wanted to know more about the early years of her own life when she came to the United States as well as things about her mom she may not have known.

With each story I read, I learned more about the struggles, triumphs, and heartaches that my Grandma Greek had endured. Losing a child, living through a war and extreme poverty, and moving with her family to a country she had never even visited before are just some of the things she went through in her lifetime. Her experiences gave me strength and courage that night as I waited to hear again from my son and my parents.

The lockdown at the Tropicana ended about 6:30 a.m. my time, which is Eastern Central in Ohio. It was 3:30 a.m. there.

We are able to leave now. They cleared the building and the strip. Kyle went to get the car and will pick us up out front, said mom.

Ok, please call me when you get back to the resort, I said before we both hung up. My parents have a timeshare, and they were staying at one of the resorts that is located a few miles from the Las Vegas strip where all of the mayhem had happened.

By the time they were able to leave the casino, I had been up all night, and my grandmother’s story had brought me through it. My dad had talked many times about his trip on the boat, with the first pair of shoes he ever owned when he was 15 years old, as I was growing up. I always thought he made up the shoe part to make his point to my brother and I that we should not get everything we ask for. I honestly had never really thought about how hard it must have been or the fears and obstacles that my family had to overcome to create a new life in a country they had never been to before.

When my son went to the parking garage to get his car, he called me.

There is a dead body next to the car. There are police here and stuff. They said he was shot at the concert and was trying to make it back to his car, where he collapsed, said Kyle.

"That