Lisa Lopez-Galvan was a music lover and DJ in the Kansas City area, playing weddings, quinceañeras and an American Legion bar and grill. She mixed Tejano, Mexican and Spanish music with R&B and hip hop, and volunteered as a radio show host.
She was also a devoted fan of Kansas City’s professional sports teams and attended a parade at the city’s Union Station with her husband and young adult son on Wednesday to celebrate the Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory. Afterwards, her close circle of friends learned that she had been murdered; one of 22 people shot when the parade ended in gunfire. Lopez-Galvan’s radio station, KKFI-FM, confirmed her death.
Rosa Izurieta and Martha Ramirez worked with Lopez-Galvan at a local employment agency for about a year, but had known her since childhood. They remembered her as an outgoing and strong Catholic, devoted to her family, who was passionate about connecting job seekers with employment and ready to help anyone.
And, they said, making music part-time allowed the mother of two, who was in her mid-40s, to share her passion as one of the region’s few Latina DJs.
“She was definitely a pioneer. She knew how to get people going,” Ramirez said Wednesday night. “She was always really good at calling out people’s birthdays and making people feel included and loved.”
The shooting victims included eight children, police said. Izurieta said her friends believe Lopez-Galvan was shot in the chest and that her son was also shot. According to police, three people have been arrested.
KKFI posted a statement on its Facebook page confirming Lopez-Galvan’s death “with sincere sadness and an extremely heavy and broken heart.” The station urged people to contact police if they think they have seen anything.
One photo showed Lopez-Galvan with her family. Her husband smiled, she laughed, and their teenage daughter sat between them. Her son was sitting on the other side of her and they had their arms around each other. Both children laughed too.
“This senseless act has taken a beautiful person from her family and this KC community,” the station said.
Izurieta and Ramirez said Lopez-Galvan’s roots in Kansas City run deep. Her father founded the city’s first mariachi group, Mariachi Mexico, in the 1980s, they said, and the family is well-known and active in the Latino community.
Lopez-Galvan and her two children attended Bishop Miege, a Catholic high school in a suburb on the Kansas side, and she worked there for years as a clerk at a police station.
“This is another example of a truly loving, genuine human being whose life was tragically taken by a senseless act,” her brother, Beto Lopez, said Thursday in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Izurieta said working with staffing companies – matching workers with light manufacturing companies – was a good fit for Lopez-Galvan. She ran a branch on the Kansas side before leaving for another similar job last fall.
When companies were looking for employees, the employment agency gave the branches the task of finding them. Lopez-Galvan managed her staff, but, Izurieta said, “she always jumped in when she saw a big load of people coming in.”
Izurieta described Lopez-Galvan as having “a selfless heart” and “very giving.” She recalled that a pregnant coworker didn’t seem to have many friends around in 2022, so Lopez-Galvan hosted a baby shower.
Now friends and family are planning a vigil or memorial in Lopez-Galvan’s honor.
“She’s the type of person who would jump in front of a bullet for anyone — that would be Lisa,” Izurieta said. “We’re still trying to figure out what happened, how it happened. But some of us think she would have been that person who would have jumped in front of anyone – you know, just to save a life.”