Shooting after Chiefs Super Bowl parade seemed to stem from dispute among several people, police say
“Parades, rallies, schools, movies. It seems like almost nothing is safe,” said Mayor Quinton Lucas.
9 months ago
Police clear the area following a shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs NFL football Super Bowl celebration in Kansas City, Mo., Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Reed Hoffmann)
he shooting after the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl celebration that killed one woman and injured more than 20 people appears to have stemmed from a dispute, police said Thursday.
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:
The 22 people injured in the shooting ranged between the ages of 8 and 47 years old and half of them were under the age of 16, Police Chief Stacey Graves said at a news conference on Thursday. A mother of two was also killed.
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 loyal 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.
Of the eight gunshot victims taken to one hospital on Wednesday, officials said two were still in critical condition on Thursday morning and five had been discharged. The hospital was treating four people who had been injured in the chaos after the shooting, and three of them had been discharged. An official at a second hospital said Thursday that one gunshot victim there remains in critical condition and four people injured in the aftermath of the shooting were treated and released.
At a children’s hospital, an official said Thursday that nine of the 12 patients they received from the celebration have been released. Of the 11 children they treated between 6 and 15, nine of them had gunshot wounds. All were expected to recover.
Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said three people, including two juveniles, were detained and several firearms were recovered. Police are working to determine whether other people were involved, she said, calling it “a very active investigation.” Police did not release details about those who were detained, the weapons seized or a possible motive.
Investigators were asking witnesses, people with cellphone footage and victims of the violence to call a dedicated hotline. It’s not clear how the shooting unfolded or how many people fired guns, but Graves said the shooting mostly happened on the west side of Union Station and not at more than one location as initial reports indicated.
Graves thanked people at the event who “acted bravely” alongside law enforcement, noting that people helped each other and even physically stopped one person who was believed to be involved. A video showed two people chase and tackle a person, holding them down until two police officers arrived.
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.
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.