Chiefs parade shooting a 'personal dispute' not terrorism as 2 'juveniles' held
The shooting during the Kansas City Chiefs parade was the result of a "personal dispute" between several people in the crowd that ended in gunfire and was not related to terrorism, police have said.
Additionally, two of the three suspects arrested were juveniles, according to the police. No one has been charged in relation to the incident as of yet. Eight of the victims hospitalised are in critical condition, and seven of them are in serious condition.
One 43-year-old woman was killed during the incident, and she has been identified officially as Elizabeth Galvan, but was known locally as Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a radio DJ. "She was loved by many. To her friends and family, we want to say, we are with you," police Chief Stacey Graves said. The woman killed in the shooting was previously identified by radio station KKFI-FM as Lisa Lopez-Galvan, whose DJ name was 'Lisa G' and she hosted the show 'Taste of Tejano.'
Lopez-Galvan was an extrovert and devoted mother from a prominent Latino family in the area, said Rosa Izurieta and Martha Ramirez, two childhood friends who worked with her at a staffing company. “She's the type of person who would jump in front of a bullet for anybody — that would be Lisa,” Izurieta said.
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Local Radio DJ Lisa Lopez-Galvan was killed in shooting (LISA LOPEZ-GALVAN/FACEBOOK)The 22 victims who were injured as gunfire erupted at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade ranged between the ages of eight and 47 years old. Half of victims are under the age of 16, it was announced during a press conference.
Graves said: "First and foremost, I want to stress that preliminary investigative findings have shown there was no nexus to terrorism or homegrown violent extremism. This appeared to be a dispute between several people that ended in gunfire."
Firearms were recovered by police during the mayhem. But investigators are calling for witnesses, people with cellphone footage and victims of the violence to call a dedicated hotline.
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A victim injured is tended to (AFP via Getty Images)Graves said at the news conference: "We are working to determine the involvement of others. And it should be noted we have recovered several firearms. This incident is still a very active investigation."
The shooting outside Union Station occurred despite the presence of more than 800 police officers who were in the building and nearby, including on top of nearby structures, said Mayor Quinton Lucas, who attended with his wife and mother and ran for safety when the shots rang out.
Lucas said of the mass shootings continuing to plague the nation: "Parades, rallies, schools, movies. It seems like almost nothing is safe."
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Fans rush for cover as gunfire erupts (AFP via Getty Images)Throngs had lined the parade route before the shooting, with fans climbing trees and street poles or standing on rooftops for a better view. Players rolled through the crowd on double-decker buses, as DJs and drummers heralded their arrival.
It's unclear exactly how many people attended the Chief's Super Bowl parade. When the Kansas City Royals won the World Series in 2015, an estimated 800,000 people had flocked to that victory parade, shattering expectations in a city with a population of about 470,000 and a metropolitan area of about 2 million.
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Witnesses described confusion as gunshots began, sounding to some like fireworks. Some people didn’t run at first but others immediately scrambled for cover. The rally music initially continued playing despite the havoc. And then, within moments of the shooting stopping, some people were walking as if nothing happened.
People flee after shots were fired (AFP via Getty Images)Gene Hamilton, 61, of Wichita, Kansas, said he found it unnerving that the upbeat rally music continued among the confusion. “If people are shooting, they should change the music,” he said.
Ashley Coderre, a 36-year-old from Overland Park, Kansas, said she heard two or three shots after walking out of a Panera near Crown Center, a couple blocks from Union Station. She said people were running and yelling. Then suddenly she said people were walking around like nothing had happened: “We were so confused.”
People flee after shots were fired near the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl LVIII victory parade (AFP via Getty Images)It is the latest sports celebration in the U.S. to be marred by gun violence, following a shooting that wounded several people last year in Denver after the Nuggets' NBA championship and gunfire last year at a parking lot near the Texas Rangers' World Series championship parade.
Social media users posted shocking video of police running through Wednesday's crowded scene as people scrambled for cover and fled. One video showed someone apparently performing chest compressions on a victim as another person, seemingly writhing in pain, lay on the ground nearby. People screamed in the background.
Another video showed two people chase and tackle a person, holding them down until two police officers arrived. In an interview Thursday with ABC's “Good Morning America,” Trey Filter of Wichita, Kansas, said he saw someone being chased and took action.
Police detain someone following the shooting (KETV)
A number of people were detained by police and members of the crowd (KMBC)“I couldn’t see much. I heard, ‘Get 'em!’ I saw a flash next to me. And I remember I jumped and remember thinking, ‘I hope this is the fool they were talking about,'" he said. “They started yelling that, ‘There’s a gun! There’s a gun!’"
Filter said he and another man kept the person pinned down until officers arrived. "I remember the officers pulling my feet off of him and at that point I was just looking for my wife and kids,” he said. It was not immediately clear if the person he held down was involved in the shooting, but Filter's wife, Casey, saw a gun nearby and picked it up.
Kansas City has long struggled with gun violence, and in 2020 it was among nine cities targeted by the U.S. Justice Department in an effort to crack down on violent crime. In 2023, the city matched a record with 182 homicides, most of which involved guns.
Lucas has joined with mayors across the country in calling for new laws to reduce gun violence, including mandating universal background checks.
“We did everything to make this event as safe as possible,” Lucas, a Democrat, said in an interview on KMBC-TV Thursday. "But as long as we have fools who will commit these types of acts, as long as we have their access to firearms with this level of capacity, then we may see incidents like this one.”
A shooting incident at a packed parade Wednesday to celebrate the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory killed one person and injured several others (AFP via Getty Images)The parade and rally were the third in five years after Chiefs' Super Bowl wins. Lucas said it may be time to reconsider how to handle the next one if they win again, perhaps holding a “vastly smaller event” at Arrowhead Stadium, with fans going through metal detectors.
Lisa Money of Kansas City was trying to gather some confetti near the end of the parade when she heard somebody yell, “Down, down, everybody down!” At first she thought it might be a joke, until she saw the SWAT team jumping over the fence. “I can’t believe it really happened,” Money said. “Who in their right mind would do something like this?”
Thousands of fans had gathered by Union Station before the shooting erupted (Getty Images)University Health spokesperson Leslie Carto said two of the eight gunshot victims brought to the hospital are still in critical condition. One is in stable condition. The other five have been discharged. The hospital also treated four people from the rally who had non gunshot injuries. Three of those patients were discharged, Carto said.
Stephanie Meyer, chief nursing officer for Children’s Mercy Kansas City, said it was treating 12 patients from the rally, including 11 children between the ages of 6 and 15, many of whom suffered gunshot wounds. All were expected to recover, she said.
A person is detained near the scene (AFP via Getty Images)When asked about the condition of the children, Meyer responded: “Fear. The one word I would use to describe what we saw and how they came to us was fear.”
St. Luke’s Hospital spokesperson Emily Hohenberg said one gunshot victim at the hospital remains in critical condition. Four people who suffered injuries while fleeing the aftermath of the shooting were treated and released.
Who was Lisa Lopez-Galvan?
Lisa Lopez-Galvan was a music lover and DJ in the Kansas City area who played at weddings, quinceaneras and an American Legion bar and grill. She mixed Tejano, Mexican and Spanish music with R&B and hip-hop, and volunteered as a host on a radio program.
She also was a devoted fan of Kansas City's professional sports teams and went with her husband and young adult son to a parade Wednesday at the city's Union Station to celebrate the Chiefs' Super Bowl win. Afterward, her tight circle of friends learned that she was killed, one of 23 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 for about a year at a local staffing firm but had known her since childhood. They remembered her as an extrovert and a strong Catholic devoted to her family who was passionate about connecting job seekers with employment and ready to help anyone.
Lisa Lopez-Galvan was radio host of 'Taste of Tejano' (KKFI/UPI/REX/Shutterstock)
'She was so full of life,' shared a friend (LISA LOPEZ-GALVAN/FACEBOOK)And, they said, working part time playing music allowed the mother of two to share her passion as one of the area's few Latina DJs.
"She was definitely a pioneer. She knew how to get people going," Ramirez said Wednesday evening. "She was always really good about shouting out people's birthdays and just making people feel included and loved."
The shooting victims ranged in age from 8 to 47, and half were under 16, police said. Izurieta said her friends believe Lopez-Galvan was shot in the chest and that her son was shot as well. Three people were detained and police said the shooting appeared to stem from a dispute between several people.
Police identified Lopez-Galvan as Elizabeth Galvan, 43, instead of the name she used on her Facebook page and the name used by her two friends and the radio station. Ramirez said that as a DJ, she went by Lisa G.
Lisa was well loved by friends and coworkers (Lisa Lopez/Facebook)Izurieta sent an email Wednesday night to The AP saying, "Kansas City was on Top of The World and when all this occurred It Stopped."
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 believe they saw something.
The radio station also reposted a photo that Lopez-Galvan had at the top of her Facebook page, which appeared to be from a celebration. It showed Lopez-Galvan with her family. Her husband was smiling, she was laughing, and their teenage daughter was between them. Her son was on the other side of her, and they had their arms around each other. Both children were laughing, too.
"This senseless act has taken a beautiful person from her family and this KC Community," the radio station said.
Izurieta and Ramirez said Lopez-Galvan's Kansas City roots 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. Her brother, Beto Lopez, is the CEO of the Guadalupe Centers, which provides community services and runs charter schools for the Latino community.
Lopez-Galvan and her two children went to Bishop Miege, a Catholic high school in a suburb on the Kansas side, and she worked for years as a clerk in a police department there.
"This is another example of a real loving, real human whose life was taken tragically with a senseless act," Beto Lopez said in an interview Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America."
Izurieta said working with staffing companies - matching workers with light manufacturing companies - suited Lopez-Galvan well. She managed a branch office on the Kansas side before departing last fall for another, similar job.
When companies sought workers, the staffing firm would give branch offices the job of finding them. Lopez-Galvan was directing her staff but, Izurieta said, "she would always jump in if she saw a heavy load of people coming in."
Izurieta described Lopez-Galvan as having "a selfless heart" and "very giving." She recalled that in 2022, a pregnant co-worker did not seem to have many friends in the area, so Lopez-Galvan organized a baby shower.
Now, friends and family are planning to organise a vigil or memorial to honor Lopez-Galvan.
"She's the type of person who would jump in front of a bullet for anybody - that would that would be Lisa," Izurieta said. "We're still trying to figure out what happened, how it happened. But some of us are thinking she would have been that person that would have jumped in front of anybody - you know, just to save a life.
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