Three Missouri men have been charged with federal gun counts after a shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade and rally last month left one person dead and about 20 others injured, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
The federal indictment was made public Wednesday, three weeks after state authorities charged two other men, Lyndell Mays and Dominic Miller, with second-degree murder and several weapons charges for the Feb. 14 shooting. Authorities also arrested two youths last month on firearms charges. related and resisting arrest charges.
Authorities have said a bullet from Miller’s gun killed Lisa Lopez-Galvan, who was in a nearby crowd of people watching the rally. She was a mother of two and host of a local radio show called “Taste of Tejano.” According to the police, the injured range in age from 8 to 47 years.
Named in the new federal indictment were 22-year-old Fedo Antonia Manning, Ronnel Dewayne Williams Jr., 21, and Chaelyn Hendrick Groves, 19, all of Kansas City. Manning is charged with one count of conspiracy to traffic firearms and engaging in the sale of firearms without a license, and 10 counts of making a false statement on a federal form. Williams and Groves are charged with making false statements in the acquisition of firearms and lying to a federal agent.
Court documents included in the complaint said 12 people brandished firearms and at least six people fired weapons during the Feb. 14 rally, which was attended by an estimated 1 million people. The meeting was just wrapping up when gunfire broke out and people took cover. The shooting occurred when a group of people confronted another group for staring at them, police said.
Manning made his first appearance Wednesday, according to online court records. He did not have a lawyer on the list, but asked for one to be appointed for him. The online court record for Williams and Groves also did not list attorneys who could comment on their behalf.
A call to the federal public defender’s office in Kansas City went unanswered Wednesday.
The new complaints made public Wednesday do not allege the men were among the shooters. Instead, they are accused of involvement in the purchase of straw and the trafficking of firearms.
“Stopping straw buyers and preventing illegal firearms trafficking is our first line of defense against gun violence,” U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore said in the news release. “At least two of the firearms recovered from the scene of the Union Station mass shooting were illegally purchased or traded.”
Federal prosecutors said a weapon recovered at the scene of the gathering was an Anderson Manufacturing AM-15 .223-caliber handgun, found along a wall with a backpack next to two AR-15-style firearms and a backpack. The release stated that the firearm was in the “fire” position with 26 rounds in a magazine that could hold 30 rounds – meaning some rounds may have been fired from it.
The affidavit stated that Manning purchased the AM-15 on August 7, 2022, at a gun store in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City. He is accused of illegal trafficking in dozens of firearms, including many AM-15s.
Also recovered at the scene was a Stag Arms 300-caliber handgun, which the complaint said was purchased by Williams at a gun show in November. Prosecutors say Williams bought the gun for Groves, who accompanied him to the show but was too young to legally buy a gun for himself.
Prosecutors say Manning and Williams also purchased firearm receivers, gun parts known as frames that can be built into complete weapons by adding other, sometimes unregulated, components.
The complaint alleged that Manning was the straw buyer of guns that were later sold to a confidential informant in a separate investigation.
___ Jim Salter in St. Louis and Lindsey Whitehurst in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.