Gunfire erupted at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl celebration Wednesday, leaving one woman dead and more than 20 people injured, including children.
Shots rang out at the end of the celebration outside the city’s historic Union Station. Fans had lined the parade route and some even climbed trees and street poles or stood on rooftops to watch as players passed by on double-decker buses. The team said all players, coaches and staffers and their families were “safe and accounted for” after the shooting.
Mayor Quinton Lucas, who attended with his wife and mother and ran for safety when shots were fired, said the shooting happened despite the presence of more than 800 police officers in the building and nearby.
Here’s what we know:
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THE VICTIMS
Radio station KKFI said via Facebook that Lisa Lopez-Galvan, the host of “Taste of Tejano,” was killed. Lopez-Galvan, whose DJ name was “Lisa G,” was an extrovert and devoted mother of two 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 long-standing Kansas City sports fan who also was shot.
Lopez-Galvan also played at weddings, quinceañeras and an American Legion bar and grill, mixing Tejano, Mexican and Spanish music with R&B and hip-hop. Izurieta and Ramirez said Lopez-Galvan’s family is active in the Latino community and her father founded the city’s first mariachi group, Mariachi Mexico, in the 1980s.
Officials at one hospital said they were treating eight gunshot victims, two of them critically injured, and another four hurt in the chaos after the shooting. An official at a second hospital said they received one gunshot patient in critical condition.
Children’s Mercy Hospital said 11 of the 12 patients it was treating from Wednesday’s incident were children between 6 and 15. Nine of the kids had been shot, but all the victims are expected to recover. Three of them remain impatient at the hospital while all others have been released.
THE INVESTIGATION
Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said three people had been detained, and firearms were recovered. She said police were still piecing together what happened and did not release details about those who were detained or a possible motive.
The FBI and police were asking anyone who had video of the events to submit it to a tip line.
Graves said at a news conference that she heard that fans may have been involved in tackling a suspect but couldn’t immediately confirm that. A video showed two people chase and tackle a person, holding them down until two police officers arrived.
CITY’S HISTORY
Kansas City has 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 its record with 182 homicides, most of which involved guns.
Mayor Quinton Lucas has joined with mayors across the country in calling for new laws to reduce gun violence, including mandating universal background checks.
VIOLENCE AT SPORTS CELEBRATIONS
The gun violence at Wednesday’s parade is the latest at a 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.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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