A historic railway station on the edge of downtown Kansas City became the latest backdrop for a mass shooting as gunfire near the end of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl celebration sent terrified fans scrambling for cover and left 21 people wounded — including at least eight children — and a mother of two dead.
Wednesday’s shooting outside Union Station happened despite the presence of more than 800 police officers who were in the building and nearby, including on top of nearby structures, said Mayor Quinton Lucas, who attended with his wife and mother and ran for safety when the shots rang out.
“Parades, rallies, schools, movies. It seems like almost nothing is safe,” Lucas said.
Three people were detained and firearms were recovered, Police Chief Stacey Graves said at an evening news conference. She said police were still piecing together what happened and did not release details about those who were detained or a possible motive.
Rumors have circulated on social media that the shooting was gang-related and the victims were innocent bystanders in the Democrat-run city that has struggled with a crime surge. These rumors have not been addressed by authorities.
“I’m angry at what happened today. The people who came to this celebration should expect a safe environment,” Graves said.
It is the latest sports celebration in the U.S. to be marred by gun violence, following a shooting that wounded several people last year in Denver after the Nuggets’ NBA championship, and gunfire last year at a parking lot near the Texas Rangers’ World Series championship parade.
Social media users posted shocking video of police running through Wednesday’s crowded scene as people scrambled for cover and fled. One video showed someone apparently performing chest compressions on a victim as another person, seemingly writhing in pain, lay on the ground nearby. People screamed in the background.
Another video showed two fans chase and tackle a suspect, holding them down until two police officers arrived. In an interview Thursday with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Trey Filter of Wichita, Kansas, said he saw someone being chased and took action.
“I couldn’t see much. I heard, ‘Get ‘em!’ I saw a flash next to me. And I remember I jumped and remember thinking, ‘I hope this is the fool they were talking about,’” he said. “They started yelling that, ‘There’s a gun, there’s a gun!’”
Filter said he and another man kept the person pinned down until officers arrived. “I remember the officers pulling my feet off of him and at that point I was just looking for my wife and kids.” It was not immediately clear if the person he held down was involved in the shooting, but Filter’s wife, Casey, saw a gun nearby and picked it up,
“There honestly was not much to think about except just my husband and my kids,” Casey Filter said. “And then a gun I saw obviously, there. I was just wanting everyone to be safe. That was my main concern.”
Brave fans tackle one of the shooters as chaos erupts at the Chiefs Super Bowl parade pic.twitter.com/hq0ZFADVHm
— vids that go hard (@vidsthatgohard) February 14, 2024
The woman killed in the shooting was identified by radio station KKFI as Lisa Lopez-Galvan, host of “Taste of Tejano.”
“This senseless act has taken a beautiful person from her family and this KC Community,” KKFI said in a statement on its Facebook page.
Lopez-Galvan, whose DJ name was “Lisa G,” was an extrovert and devoted mother from a prominent Latino family in the area, said Rosa Izurieta and Martha Ramirez, two childhood friends who worked with her at a staffing company. Izurieta said Lopez-Galvan attended the parade with her husband and her adult son, a die-hard Kansas City sports fan who also was shot.
“She’s the type of person who would jump in front of a bullet for anybody — that would be Lisa,” Izurieta said.
Kansas City has long struggled with gun violence, and in 2020 it was among nine cities targeted by the U.S. Justice Department in an effort to crack down on violent crime. In 2023 the city matched a record with 182 homicides, most of which involved guns.
Lucas blamed gun laws for the spiraling violence and called for mandating universal background checks.
“We had 800 officers out yesterday,” Lucas, a Democrat, said in an interview on KMBC-TV Thursday. “We had snipers on roofs, we had cameras everywhere. We did everything to make this event as safe as possible. 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.”
The parade and rally was the third in five years following Chiefs’ Super Bowl wins. Lucas said it may be time to reconsider how to handle the next one if they win again, perhaps holding a “vastly smaller event” at Arrowhead Stadium, with fans going through metal detectors.
“It’s a shame that this is what we’ve come to today in America and in our city. But I think this is something that we need to evaluate,” Lucas said.
Lisa Money of Kansas City was trying to gather some confetti near the end of the parade when she heard somebody yell, “Down, down, everybody down!” At first she thought it might be a joke, until she saw the SWAT team jumping over the fence.
“I can’t believe it really happened,” Money said. “Who in their right mind would do something like this?”
University Health spokesperson Nancy Lewis said the hospital was treating eight gunshot victims. Two were in critical condition and six were stable. The hospital also was treating four people for other injuries resulting from the chaos after the shooting, Lewis said.
Stephanie Meyer, chief nursing officer for Children’s Mercy Kansas City, said it was treating 12 patients from the rally, including 11 children between the ages of 6 and 15, many of whom suffered gunshot wounds. All were expected to recover, she said.
When asked about the condition of the children, Meyer responded: “Fear. The one word I would use to describe what we saw and how they came to us was fear.”
St. Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City received one gunshot patient in critical condition, a spokesperson said.
Chiefs trainer Rick Burkholder said he was with coach Andy Reid and other coaches and staff members at the time of the shooting, and that the team was on buses and returning to Arrowhead Stadium.
“We are truly saddened by the senseless act of violence that occurred outside of Union Station at the conclusion of today’s parade and rally,” the team said in a statement.
Missouri’s Republican Gov. Mike Parson and first lady Teresa Parson were at the parade during the gunfire but were unhurt. In a statement, he thanked security officers and first responders for their professionalism.
President Joe Biden, who was briefed on the shooting and received updates throughout the day, said the tragedy “cuts deep in the American soul” and called for Congress to take action to prevent gun violence.
“And I ask the country to stand with me,” Biden said in a statement. “To make your voice heard in Congress so we finally act to ban assault weapons, to limit high-capacity magazines, strengthen background checks, keep guns out of the hands of those who have no business owning them or handling them.”
Throngs had lined the parade route before the shooting, with fans climbing trees and street poles or standing on rooftops for a better view. Players rolled through the crowd on double-decker buses, as DJs and drummers heralded their arrival.
The Associated Press contributed to this article