Las Vegas Remembers 2,977 Lives Lost on 25th Anniversary of 9/11
Retired NYPD officers, Las Vegas law enforcement personnel and community members gathered at Police Memorial Park to honor the 2,977 people killed on September 11, 2001, and remember the courage, sacrifice and resilience that followed.
By Las Vegas News | September 11, 2026
- The City of Las Vegas and Las Vegas Ten-13 Club held a public September 11 remembrance at Police Memorial Park.
- The ceremony marked 25 years since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks killed 2,977 people.
- The Ten-13 Club is made up of retired NYPD officers and retired law enforcement officers from other agencies.
- Police Memorial Park contains memorials honoring fallen officers and preserving Las Vegas’ connection to September 11.
LAS VEGAS — Twenty-five years after terrorist attacks transformed the United States and took 2,977 lives, members of the Las Vegas community gathered Friday beneath the Nevada sun for a solemn promise that has endured for a quarter century: remember.
Law enforcement officers stood at attention and saluted. Retired officers who carried memories of New York gathered alongside Southern Nevada residents. American flags surrounded the stage at Police Memorial Park as the City of Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Ten-13 Club commemorated the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said the gathering was an opportunity to reflect not only on those killed that morning, but also on the courage, sacrifice and resilience that emerged in the days and years that followed.
The department summarized the anniversary with two words that have become inseparable from September 11 remembrance: “Never forgotten.”
A Las Vegas remembrance with deep New York roots
The location carried particular meaning. Police Memorial Park in northwest Las Vegas is dedicated to law enforcement officers and contains memorial spaces honoring officers who died in service.
It also carries a direct connection to September 11 and New York City.
The park includes trees dedicated to the Ten-13 Retired New York Police Officers Club. One of the trees growing there is a Callery pear descended from the tree that survived the destruction of the World Trade Center and later became known as the Survivor Tree.
Las Vegas received two seedlings connected to that tree. One is at Police Memorial Park, while another stands at Las Vegas Fire & Rescue Station 5. They serve as living memorials to survival, recovery and the responsibility to remember.
Against that setting Friday, officers and community members observed an anniversary that is increasingly becoming history for younger Americans but remains deeply personal for those who lived through it.
What is the Las Vegas Ten-13 Club?
The Las Vegas Ten-13 Club is composed of retired New York City police officers as well as retired law enforcement officers from agencies across the country.
Its name carries particular meaning inside the NYPD. A 10-13 radio transmission is associated with an officer needing urgent assistance, a signal capable of sending fellow officers immediately toward a colleague in danger.
In retirement, the Las Vegas organization has helped maintain bonds among officers while preserving the memory of colleagues, first responders and civilians lost on September 11.
That mission has been visible in Southern Nevada for years. Retired NYPD officers living in the Las Vegas Valley have previously shared personal memories of watching the attacks unfold, trying to return to service and later seeing the long-term health effects experienced by officers and others who worked at Ground Zero.
For those officers, remembrance is not simply an annual ceremony. It is a connection to former colleagues, families and a day that changed the profession in which they spent their careers.
The sacrifice of law enforcement on September 11
September 11 inflicted an extraordinary toll on first responders.
Twenty-three NYPD officers were killed while responding to the World Trade Center. Thirty-seven Port Authority Police Department officers also died, along with 343 members of the New York City Fire Department.
For many first responders, however, the consequences of September 11 did not end when rescue and recovery operations concluded.
Thousands of responders and recovery workers were exposed to hazardous conditions at Ground Zero. In the decades since, hundreds of law enforcement officers and other responders have died from illnesses connected to their service following the attacks.
The 25th anniversary has brought renewed attention to that continuing toll and to the men and women whose deaths came years after the attacks themselves.
A growing share of Americans were either not yet born or were too young to remember September 11, 2001. Ceremonies such as the Las Vegas Ten-13 remembrance therefore serve not only as memorials, but also as opportunities to pass firsthand history to another generation.
Las Vegas paused across the city
The Police Memorial Park gathering was one of several September 11 observances held across Las Vegas on the anniversary.
Las Vegas Fire & Rescue has long commemorated September 11 through its traditional Tolling of the Bells remembrance at Fire Station 5, where a piece of World Trade Center steel and another descendant of the Survivor Tree help preserve the city’s connection to the attacks.
Las Vegas schools and community organizations have also continued local remembrance traditions, helping ensure that September 11 remains more than a date in a history book.
Together, those ceremonies place Las Vegas within a nationwide day of remembrance stretching from Ground Zero in New York to the Pentagon and the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania.
A quarter century later: “Never forgotten”
Twenty-five years can turn eyewitness history into something encountered mostly through photographs, documentaries, memorials and classrooms.
That transition gives gatherings such as Friday’s Las Vegas ceremony a new responsibility.
For retired officers who remember where they were when the first plane struck, the memories remain immediate. For younger officers standing at attention in Las Vegas, and for children who know September 11 only as history, those memories must now be passed forward.
The names, uniforms, memorial trees and salutes at Police Memorial Park served the same purpose Friday: ensuring that the people behind one of the most consequential dates in American history are not reduced simply to a number.
Twenty-five years later, Las Vegas remembered the 2,977 lives lost, the first responders who ran toward danger and the thousands whose lives were permanently changed in the years that followed.
The message from Police Memorial Park remained simple: Never forgotten.
