LAS VEGAS \u2014 Residents of a homeless encampment where one person was fatally shot and four others were wounded said they are scared and angry as the assailant remains at large and police say they do not know why the unhoused community was targeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But some unsheltered residents say the motive for the Dec. 1 shooting is clear to them, and it exemplifies the ongoing violence homeless people endure, including the recent shootings of three unhoused residents\u2002<\/a>in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think it was something against homeless people,\u201d said Veronica Ledesma, 29, who lives in an encampment two blocks from where the shooting occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ledesma, who said she became homeless 14 years ago when her parents kicked her out of their house in Las Vegas, is among a growing number of unhoused people in the metropolitan area, where their numbers reached an eight-year high of nearly 7,000 in January, according to a survey\u2002<\/a>conducted by Clark County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Las Vegas officials blame the pandemic, inflation and an affordable housing shortage for the region\u2019s growing number of homeless people, who are often viewed as society\u2019s castoffs and include many struggling with mental illness and substance abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some have literally been forced underground<\/a>, turning aqueducts and tunnels built for flood control beneath the Las Vegas Strip into shelter for themselves. But homeless people have been under attack for decades. Staged fights between homeless men were videotaped and sold under the name\u2002<\/a>\u201c<\/a>Bumfights<\/a>\u201d<\/a> in the early 2000s, and a homeless man was burned alive<\/a> in Los Angeles in 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m mad and I\u2019m sad,\u201d said Shawn Fierro, 30, a homeless man who knew all five shooting victims and lives in a tent near Route 95, about 10 miles from the lights and sounds of the Strip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fierro said he fears he could be the next victim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m worried it may happen again,\u201d he said. \u201cWho\u2019s to say it can\u2019t happen to me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has released security video of the shooter fleeing the scene of the shooting, which came after three homeless people were shot in Los Angeles in late November. Las Vegas police have said the shootings are unrelated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Several people who live in the encampment where the shooting occurred said they have since been harassed and threatened by local homeowners who don\u2019t want them in their neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe try to stay hidden and out of public view, but nobody wants us in the community,\u201d said Ledesma, who sleeps on a concrete curb under a large, blue tarp covering her used futon, a blanket, clothes and the unnamed guinea pig she found outside a storefront one night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s rats and cockroaches, so you gotta have a bed,\u201d she said of her futon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Frank Lucero, 46, who became homeless eight years ago after going through a divorce and losing his job, said he has become accustomed to living in harm\u2019s way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not afraid,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Las Vegas police declined to comment on what they are doing to protect the city\u2019s homeless population and referred NBC News to the website of its Homeless Outreach Team<\/a>, which aims to \u201clower the number of unhoused people requiring law enforcement and medical responses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n City officials passed an encampment ordinance<\/a> in 2019 making it a misdemeanor to camp or sleep in public rights of way, on sidewalks or streets, downtown and in residential neighborhoods when beds are available at the Courtyard Homeless Resource Center<\/a> or another nonprofit service provider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 500-bed resource center north of downtown in the \u201cCorridor of Hope,\u201d home to the city\u2019s largest population of unhoused people, provides shelter and access to medical care, housing and employment services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They are not required to be sober and can stay for as long as they need, city officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe goal is to get people healthy, housed and hired,\u201d said city spokesman Jace Radke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier this week, it was business as usual as hundreds of people either crowded into the resource center or camped out in tents lining nearby streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNow, it\u2019s their choice if they want to come in. Some folks are resistant to services,\u201d Radke said. \u201c[But] it\u2019s a priority for the city to help those in need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n