Shooting After Chiefs Super Bowl Parade Seemed To Stem From Dispute Among Several People, Police Say

Kansas City, Missouri – The mass shooting that occurred amid crowds at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl celebration looked to be the result of a dispute between several persons, authorities said Thursday.

Police Chief Stacey Graves said the 22 people injured in the incident ranged in age from 8 to 47 years old, with half of them under the age of 16. A mother of two was also killed.

Graves said three people were held, including two children, but no charges have been filed yet. Police are urging witnesses, anyone with mobile footage and victims of the violence to contact a special hotline.

“We are investigating the involvement of others. It should be mentioned that we have retrieved multiple guns. “This is still a very active investigation,” Graves stated during a press briefing.

Shooting After Chiefs Super Bowl Parade Seemed To Stem From Dispute Among Several People, Police Say

The shooting outside Union Station occurred despite the presence of around 800 police officers in the building and surrounding vicinity, including on top of adjoining structures, according to Mayor Quinton Lucas, who arrived with his wife and mother and fled for safety when the guns rang out. However, he does not plan to cancel the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day parade.

“We hold parades all the time. I don’t think they will finish. “Certainly, we recognised the public safety challenges and issues surrounding them,” Lucas added.

Before the shooting, crowds gathered along the parade route, with some fans climbing trees and street poles or standing on rooftops to get a better view. Double-decker buses with drummers and DJs passing by the audience carried players.

The police had estimated that 1 million people attended the march, which took place in a city with a population of around 470,000 and a metropolitan area of roughly 2 million, but emphasised that a small group of people perpetrated the violence.

“The law enforcement response was excellent. “Those in attendance also responded,” Graves said. “They helped one another and even physically stop a person believed to be involved in the incident.”

Meanwhile, police continue to seek witnesses to come forward. Many others recalled a feeling of disorientation that spread throughout the gathering.

The demonstration had just ended, and music was still playing when the shooting began. Many folks initially believed they were hearing fireworks. However, mayhem ensued. Some in the crowd fell to the ground, while others jumped over barriers and fled the scene, some carrying toddlers in their arms.

The gathering was so large that normalcy swiftly returned, with several supporters confused about what had transpired. But suddenly, ambulances arrived, and officers rushed in, pistols drawn. Some of the least badly injured were transported away in golf carts.

The startled crowd, some in tears, cautiously gathered their possessions, attempting to find how to return home. Strangers consoled one another as police taped up the crime scene in an area where there had been a joyful party just moments before.

Hank Hunter, a sophomore at a Kansas high school, reported hearing bullets in the distance while watching the rally with a friend. At first, they had no idea what it was, but then, “like a chain reaction”, individuals began hitting the ground.

They tried to jump over a barricade, and his friend banged his head into the concrete, Hunter explained. As the players and coaches boarded buses, a security guard led his companion into Union Station, which was closed to the public. Coach Andy Reid consoled his pal, saying he “just tried to comfort him and calm him down.”

Shooting After Chiefs Super Bowl Parade Seemed To Stem From Dispute Among Several People, Police Say

Social media users shared disturbing footage of cops dashing through Wednesday’s crowded scene. One video showed someone performing chest compressions on a victim while another person, who appeared to be in pain, lay on the ground nearby. People screamed in the background.

Another video shows two people chasing and tackling someone before holding them down until two police officers arrive. In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Trey Filter of Wichita, Kansas, said he witnessed someone being chased and intervened.

“I could not see much. I heard, ‘Get them!’ I noticed a flash close to me. And I remember jumping and thinking, ‘I hope this is the fool they were talking about,'” he explained. “They began shrieking, ‘There’s a gun! “There is a gun!”

Filter stated that he and another man kept the person pinned down until authorities came. “I remember the officers pulling my feet off of him, and at that point, I was just looking for my wife and kids,” he told reporters.

It wasn’t immediately obvious whether the guy he was holding down was involved in the shooting, but Filter’s wife, Casey, noticed a gun nearby and grabbed it up.

According to radio station KKFI-FM, the woman slain in the incident was Lisa Lopez-Galvan, host of “Taste of Tejano.”

Lopez-Galvan, whose DJ name was “Lisa G,” was an outgoing and loving mother from a well-known Latino family in the neighbourhood, according to Rosa Izurieta and Martha Ramirez, two childhood acquaintances who worked with her at a hiring firm.

“She’s the type of person who would jump in front of a bullet for anybody — that would be Lisa,” she said.

Shooting After Chiefs Super Bowl Parade Seemed To Stem From Dispute Among Several People, Police Say

Kansas City has long suffered from gun violence, and in 2020, it was one of nine towns targeted by the US Justice Department as part of an initiative to reduce violent crime. In 2023, the city tied a record with 182 killings, the majority of which included guns.

Lucas has joined mayors from throughout the country in pushing for additional gun-violence-reduction policies, such as universal background checks.

“We did everything to make this event as safe as possible,” Lucas, a Democrat, told KMBC-TV Thursday. “But as long as we have fools who will commit these types of acts, as long as we have their access to firearms with this level of capacity, then we may see incidents like this one.”

According to University Health spokesperson Leslie Carto, two of the eight gunshot patients who were brought to the hospital remain in critical condition. One person is in stable condition. The remaining five have been discharged. The hospital also treated four event attendees who sustained nongunshot injuries. Carto said that three of those patients had been discharged.

Stephanie Meyer, chief nursing officer at Children’s Mercy Kansas City, said the hospital was treating 12 rally patients, including 11 children aged 6 to 15, nine of whom had sustained gunshot wounds. Everyone was anticipated to recover, she said.

When asked about the children’s condition, Meyer said, “Fear.” The one word I’d use to describe what we saw and how they got to us is terror.”

Emily Hohenberg, a representative for St. Luke’s Hospital, said one gunshot victim is still in critical condition. Four people who were injured while fleeing the scene of the incident were treated and released.

SOURCE – (AP)