KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Gunfire erupted Wednesday during the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl celebration, killing one woman and wounding more than two dozen people, including children.
As the celebration ended, shots rang out outside the city’s historic Union Station. Fans lined the parade route and some even climbed trees and street poles or stood on rooftops to watch players pass by in 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 was present with his wife and mother and fled for safety when shots were fired, said the shooting occurred despite the presence of more than 800 police officers in the building and nearby.
This is what we know:
Radio station KKFI said via Facebook that Lisa Lopez-Galvan, the host of “Taste of Tejano,” had been killed. Lopez-Galvan, whose DJ name was “Lisa G,” was an outgoing 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 temporary employment agency. Izurieta said Lopez-Galvan attended the parade with her husband and her adult son, a die-hard sports fan from Kansas City who was also shot.
Lopez-Galvan also played 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 that her father founded the city’s first mariachi group, Mariachi Mexico, in the 1980s.
Hospital officials said that of eight gunshot victims they received Wednesday, two were still in critical condition Thursday morning and five had been discharged. Of the four people the hospital treated who were injured during the chaos after the shooting, three had been discharged.
An official at a second hospital said Thursday that one gunshot victim there was in critical condition and that four people injured in the aftermath of the shooting had been treated and released. At a children’s hospital, an official said Wednesday they were treating 12 patients from the celebration, including 11 children between the ages of six and 15, many with gunshot wounds. Everyone was expected to recover.
Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said three people were arrested and firearms were recovered. She said police were still trying to figure out what happened and had not released any details about those arrested or a possible motive.
The FBI and police asked anyone with video footage of the events to submit it to a tip line. It is not clear how the shooting developed, how many people fired weapons and whether there was more than one crime scene.
Graves said at a news conference Wednesday that she heard fans may have been involved in tackling a suspect, but she could not immediately confirm that. A video showed two people chasing and attacking a person, holding him down until two police officers arrived.
Kansas City has struggled with gun violence and was one of nine cities targeted by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2020 in an effort to crack down on violent crime. In 2023, the city tied its record with 182 homicides, most of which involved firearms.
Mayor Quinton Lucas has joined 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 in a U.S. sports celebration marred by gun violence, following a shooting that injured several people in Denver last year after the Nuggets’ NBA championship, and gunfire last year at the parade. a parking lot near the Texas Rangers’ World Series championship parade.