I lived in downtown Seattle, Washington in 1999 during the WTO Riots. That was the largest protest in the U.S. against a world meeting in U.S. History. I lived in Manhattan, NYC on September 11, 2001. That was the deadliest attack in U.S. History. We lived across from Mandalay Bay on October 1st 2017. That was when Las Vegas experienced deadliest mass shooting in U.S. History. Some of us wake up; some of us simply roll over. We woke up. After 3 clear signs; we decided to do something different. We became Jedi. First, we abandoned everything and headed for the hills. That's when our car broke-down on Ft Apache. While we were eating dinner at a restaurant, someone or some people, broke into our car. When we returned to the car, they began shooting at us. So we called the police. This was Saturday night. We called LVMPD but they said detectives in Las Vegas don't work Sundays so we should call back on Monday. Well, apparently car thieves work Sunday because someone came back and stole the entire car with all of our belongings. We reported the car stolen at the Enterprise, Nevada location a day later. They took over 4 hours interrogating JediJoy. The officer at LVMPD failed to realize that we had cancelled the insurance two days prior. She thought she was trying to make a false insurance claim. No - we were asking the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department for help for the 3rd time and they refused. As a result, we lost everything we owned that was in our 2009 Jaguar XF; a $70,000 car, all of our photography gear and computer equipment, bank statements, valuable fine art, gold, silver, and cash. Metro lost our car with our belongings right in front of their eyes. We contacted DMV they said there was nothing they could do. With only the clothes on our back and what we carried from dinner (my Nikon Coolpix, and two iPhones), we headed up to the hills and lived in the caves until we could get back on our feet. And we did. Eventually. Two years later, we received a letter from a towing company saying to pay them $1,200 or they will sell our car. Wait What? I forgot to ask them if my Mac was still in the trunk.
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AuthorFormer banker and CEO, JediRich Lightowler changed his life at age 48 to follow his passion of photography, music, video and production. He visits Las Vegas during spring and fall, the tropics during the winter, and travels during the summer to New York and London. Archives
January 2021
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