Twenty-four hours after shots rang out at the end of the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory parade and rally, the details of exactly what led up to the tragedy remain foggy.
Twenty-three people were shot Wednesday afternoon in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, right next to Union Station, where the parade had ended and the rally was held, police said Thursday.
Police said one of them was killed: Elizabeth Galvan, 43. She was a popular local radio DJ who also went by the name Lisa Lopez-Galvan. Her sister confirmed her death.
Police said that the 22 other victims are ages 8 to 47 and that at least half are under 16.
Police believe a dispute among several people ended in gunfire and said there was no evidence of terrorism or violent extremism.
Many witnesses described the chaotic scene as people fled.
Nick Bundy, 40, of Kansas City, was at the parade with his two kids, his girlfriend and her daughter.
He said that his group decided to leave just as the rally was ending but that as they were walking away from Union Station, “we heard gunshots, but it honestly didn’t really sound like a gun. It sounded like fireworks.”
Bundy said that what sounded like 15 to 20 shots in two seconds were “very quick” and sounded “almost automatic.”
As he was trying to get his group to safety, he said, he saw a dead body and a number of injured people on the ground. He said police rushed toward where the shooting occurred.
Bundy described the scene as “absolute chaos” and said the misinformation flying around and the lack of cellphone service made it difficult to understand what was going on.
Witnesses tackled potential suspects to the ground
A witness, Paul Contreras, was seen in video posted on social media tackling a possible suspect to the ground. He said in an interview on NBC’s “TODAY” show that he saw someone running in the opposite direction and “took him down.”
“It was just a reaction,” he said Thursday.
Two juveniles have been taken into custody in connection with the shooting but haven’t been charged, Police Chief Stacey Graves said at a news conference Thursday.
It’s unclear whether law enforcement was holding the person Contreras tackled.
Police initially said three people were in custody. A police spokesperson said the third person was released after it was determined that the person wasn’t involved in the shooting.
Several firearms have been recovered, Graves said.
‘Not now. This isn’t the place.’
Jacob Gooch, 37, of Leavenworth, Kansas, was shot in the ankle and has a couple of broken bones. His 13-year-old son was shot in the foot, and his partner was shot in the calf.
Gooch’s partner, Emily Tavis, 32, said that at first she didn’t know she had been shot. She said she was instead focused on finding Gooch help because he couldn’t walk and on making sure all of the kids who were with her were safe.
Gooch said in an interview that as they were walking out, he heard a woman telling someone: “Not now. This isn’t the place.” Then, shots rang out.
Tavis said she and her stepdaughter — Gooch’s daughter — saw the man the woman was talking to pull out a gun. She said they were about only 15 feet away.
“It was just all so quick,” Gooch said. He, like many other witnesses, initially thought he heard fireworks.
Tavis said she saw a person fire his gun in a circular motion as if he were trying to “air out the area,” rather than target one person or a specific group of people.
Gooch said, “You never expect to be a part of nothin’ like this, but we’re here now.”
Gooch, who acknowledged that he was probably in shock, added that it’s hard to make sense of what happened because of the lack of a known motive.
“It’s senseless,” he said. “You’re not going to make sense of it.”
Trying to run to safety amid the chaos
Janelle Duncan, 52, was at the parade with a friend when they heard “popping noises.”
“Some people were yelling ‘duck’ and ‘run, there’s a shooter.’ Someone was yelling that a lady got shot. And then another guy was yelling: ‘Come on you guys, it’s fireworks. False alarm,'” she said in a phone interview.
Duncan said she and her friend were trying to get to safety as quickly as possible, “but everybody was running in different directions.”
“Nobody could move more than a few inches at a time,” she said. As quickly as they could, they made their way “to try to get up to Main Street or to get to the grass up above. There was a big, tall fence, and everybody pushed and pushed until they could knock the fence partway down, and then we all climbed up it.”
Duncan said women in the crowd were trying to hold on to their young children.
“One in particular, she was trying to hold her little boy’s hand, and they kept almost getting separated … so we were trying to hold our arms so she wasn’t getting knocked into,” Duncan said. “There was another mom holding her baby that was just bawling. People were really being kind and helpful and trying to help people that were more vulnerable. That was cool to see.”
Lisa Felder described the panic she and her family experienced during what she said was a “surreal” moment, as everyone was “stumbling on each other” to reach safety when no one knew what was happening or where the shooter was.
Another woman, Bridget Barton, who was at the parade with her daughter, said she saw two people with guns and made eye contact with one of them.
She said she saw people get hit by gunfire right in front of her. Her daughter was hit by sparks flying off bullets that hit the ground, covering her legs in what looks like “chickenpox,” she said.
Barton said she was trampled trying to protect her daughter. She said there’s a footprint on the back of the shirt she was wearing to prove it.
Later, she found a bullet lodged in her backpack, which she took to police Thursday as possible evidence. Barton said no one searched her backpack when she arrived at the parade.
“My bag saved my life. That’s for sure,” Barton said.
