Three people were in custody in Kansas City, Missouri, yesterday, facing questions about what led to a deadly mass shooting near the city’s Super Bowl victory rally and who was behind it.
At least one person was killed and 21 others wounded by gunfire on Wednesday outside the city’s landmark Union Station, where thousands of fans had gathered with the Kansas City Chiefs to celebrate the team’s NFL championship triumph over the San Francisco 49ers, authorities said.
The bloodshed, which came at the end of the rally following a parade, turned the festive occasion into a scene of panic as throngs of attendees scrambled for cover at the sound of rapid-fire gunshots.
Photo: AFP
Local radio station KKFI identified the slain victim as Lisa Lopez, one of its disc jockeys and host of the show Taste of Tejano.
Fifteen other people had life-threatening wounds, local fire department chief Ross Grundyson said at a late-afternoon news conference.
Eleven of those hurt by gunfire or the ensuing pandemonium were children as young as six, officials said.
None of the football team, their coaches or other staff attending the rally was injured, the team said.
Local police chief Stacey Graves told a Wednesday evening news conference three people were detained “and under investigation” in connection with the shooting, but she said investigators had yet to determine a motive.
She said police were still unsure whether the Super Bowl victory celebration was targeted for attack, or whether the violence was incidental to the event and spilled over into it.
Authorities appealed to anyone who had information about the shooting or video that might help shed light on what transpired to share it with police.
Graves said she was aware of video purporting to show fans subduing a suspect, and that investigators were reviewing the footage to determine if the individual was one of the people taken into police custody.
Parade attendee Paul Contreras, told local television station KETV he was one of the fans who helped tackle the man, and saw him drop a gun when he was knocked down.
“The whole time he’s fighting to get up and run away,” Paul said, adding police arrived within moments. “We’re fighting each other, you know. We’re fighting to keep him down and he’s fighting to get up.”
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas lamented that city authorities ultimately were unable to prevent such violence despite the presence of more than 800 law enforcement officers, including federal agents, on security detail for the event.
“Parades, rallies, schools, movies — it seems like almost nothing is safe,” Quinton, a Democrat, told reporters, recounting how he was among those who ran for cover at the sound of gunfire.
The barrage of gunshots happened near a garage west of the station, whose front entrance was the backdrop to the stage for the victory rally, according to police and local media.
Union Station, a 109-year-old Beaux Arts building that once served as a major US rail hub for passenger and freight traffic, is home to a museum and visiting attractions today, and is a terminal for Amtrak passenger services.
The Super Bowl celebration featured Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce on stage with quarterback Patrick Mahomes and other teammates, but Kelce’s pop superstar girlfriend, Taylor Swift, was back on tour in Australia at the time.
The governors of Missouri and Kansas were among the dignitaries present at the event, but they, too, were unhurt.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
SECRETIVE SECT: Tetsuya Yamagami was said to have held a grudge against the Unification Church for bankrupting his family after his mother donated about ￥100m The gunman accused of killing former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe yesterday pleaded guilty, three years after the assassination in broad daylight shocked the world. The slaying forced a reckoning in a nation with little experience of gun violence, and ignited scrutiny of alleged ties between prominent conservative lawmakers and a secretive sect, the Unification Church. “Everything is true,” Tetsuya Yamagami said at a court in the western city of Nara, admitting to murdering the nation’s longest-serving leader in July 2022. The 45-year-old was led into the room by four security officials. When the judge asked him to state his name, Yamagami, who
DEADLY PREDATORS: In New South Wales, smart drumlines — anchored buoys with baited hooks — send an alert when a shark bites, allowing the sharks to be tagged High above Sydney’s beaches, drones seek one of the world’s deadliest predators, scanning for the flick of a tail, the swish of a fin or a shadow slipping through the swell. Australia’s oceans are teeming with sharks, with great whites topping the list of species that might fatally chomp a human. Undeterred, Australians flock to the sea in huge numbers — with a survey last year showing that nearly two-thirds of the population made a total of 650 million coastal visits in a single year. Many beach lovers accept the risks. When a shark killed surfer Mercury Psillakis off a northern Sydney beach last
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
RSS