Dispute may have led to mass shooting at Chiefs Super Bowl parade

Kansas City: The mass shooting that unfolded amid throngs of people at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl celebration this week, killing one person and wounding almost two dozen others, appeared to stem from a dispute between several people, authorities said.

Police Chief Stacey Graves said the 22 people injured on Thursday (AEDT) ranged between eight and 47 years old, with half under 16. A mother of two was killed.

Police said they had detained three people but released one person they determined wasn’t involved, leaving two juveniles in custody. No charges have been filed. Police were looking for others who may have been involved and were calling for witnesses, people with mobile phone footage and victims of the violence to call a dedicated hotline.

A person is taken to an ambulance following a shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs NFL football Super Bowl celebration.Credit: AP

“We are working to determine the involvement of others. And it should be noted we have recovered several firearms. This incident is still a very active investigation,” Graves said at a news conference on Friday.

The shooting outside Union Station in Kansas City occurred despite the presence of more than 800 police officers who were in the building and area, including on top of nearby structures, said Mayor Quinton Lucas, who attended with his wife and mother, and ran for safety when the shots were fired. But he didn’t expect to cancel the upcoming St Patrick’s Day parade.

“We have parades all the time. I don’t think they’ll end. Certainly, we recognised the public safety challenges and issues that relate to them,” Lucas said.

Some people take cover during a shooting at Union Station during the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl LVIII victory parade.Credit: Getty

The celebration was the third such parade since 2020, but the first where violence erupted.

People packed the parade route, with fans climbing trees and street poles for a better view. Players rolled through on double-decker buses as DJs and drummers heralded their arrival.

The police chief said 1 million people likely attended the parade in the city of about 470,000 people and a metropolitan area of about 2 million, but stressed the violence was wrought by just a handful of people.

“The law enforcement response was exemplary. Those in attendance also responded,” Graves added.

Among them was Trey Filter, who was walking to the car with his family when he heard yells of “get him”.

Police escort Kansas City Chiefs tight end Noah Gray and his teammates off the stage after a shooting following their victory parade and rally.Credit: AP

Filter, 40, saw a fleeing person, prompting him and another bystander to try to tackle him. Filter eventually jumped on top of the person.

“I don’t know what the hell I was thinking,” the owner of an asphalt and concrete company recalled. “We was, like, ‘We got him’. I’ll always remember that. And then they started screaming, ‘There’s a gun!’”

The men looked for it, realising it had been knocked loose. The gun had fallen near Filter’s wife, Casey Filter, who picked it up. At that point, the person who fled was under a dogpile about 3 metres away.

Filter, who lives outside Wichita, was still processing the melee, but he was glad there wasn’t more carnage.

“I’m sure there were a thousand other men there that would have done it,” he said of his actions.

Police didn’t identify Filter as a man who intervened or specifically say whether the person he tackled was a suspect.

Many witnesses described a sense of confusion that rippled through the crowd.

The rally had just ended and music was still blaring when the shots erupted. Many people initially thought they were hearing fireworks. But then chaos ensued. Some in the crowd hit the ground while others leapt over barriers and sprinted, some carrying children in their arms.

The crowd was so massive that normalcy returned quickly, with some fans unsure what had happened. But then ambulances arrived and officers rushed in with guns drawn. Some of the less seriously injured were driven away on golf carts.

The stunned crowd – some in tears – slowly gathered their belongings, trying to figure out how to get home. Strangers comforted each other as police put up crime scene tape in an area where moments earlier there had been a joyous celebration.

Hank Hunter, a sophomore at a Kansas high school, said he heard shots in the distance while watching the rally with a friend. Initially, they didn’t know what it was, but then “like a chain reaction” people started hitting the ground.

They ran to jump over a barricade and his friend slammed his head into the concrete, Hunter said. As the players and coaches prepared to leave on buses, a security guard ushered his friend into Union Station, which was closed to the public. There, coach Andy Reid consoled his friend and “just tried to comfort him and calm him down.”

Social media users posted shocking video of police running through the crowded. 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.

The woman killed in the shooting was identified by radio station KKFI-FM as Lisa Lopez-Galvan, host of Taste of Tejano.

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.

“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 US 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 has joined with mayors across the country in calling for new laws to reduce gun violence, including mandating universal background checks.

Meanwhile, University Health Truman Medical Centre reported that three people with gunshot wounds were still being treated there, including two in critical condition. One is a man who survived only because staff got him to the operating room within five minutes of arrival, Dr Dustin Neel said.

St Luke’s Hospital spokesperson Emily Hohenberg said one gunshot victim was upgraded from critical to serious condition.

Children’s Mercy Kansas City said three children remained there. It had received 11 children between the ages of 6 and 15, nine of whom suffered gunshot wounds. All were expected to recover.

Stephanie Meyer, the hospital’s chief nursing officer, said the kids were scared and would need mental health support. Hospital staff members were also struggling.

“They’re struggling just like you and I are, and unbelievably heartbroken that this has happened in our backyard,” said Dr Stephanie Burrus, the hospital’s chief wellbeing officer. “And we all train for this, we’re all prepared to take care of these children. But it doesn’t negate the fact that it’s still not normal for people to see many, many people wounded by gunshots.”

AP