What we know about the Kansas City shooting during the Super Bowl parade, which left at least one dead

Shooters opened fire on spectators at the Super Bowl parade in Kansas City on Wednesday, killing at least one and injuring 21.

The Superbowl Parade on Wednesday February 14 turned into a tragedy. The Chiefs were celebrating their victory in the streets of Kansas City, Missouri, in the central United States, when gunfire erupted at the end of the festivities. Provisional reports put at least one dead and 21 injured, more than half of them children. Three people were immediately arrested.

A parade with about a million spectators

It was the kind of parade Americans love. They did it with the astronauts who returned from the moon, they do it with their victorious athletes. Wednesday was the return of the champions, the winners of the country’s biggest sporting event: the Super Bowl, the final of the American Football Championship (NFL), which gathered 125 million viewers in front of their screens.

About a million people lined the streets of Kansas City, where many residents wore their red jerseys in Chiefs colors. The jerseys often came with 15 and 87, the numbers of the team’s two stars, quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Taylor Swift teammate Travis Kelce.

One dead and twenty injured, three arrested

But the parade ended in panic. In the square in front of the old Union Station, shots that some people initially took for fireworks were going off. Three people were arrested, including a man wearing a team-colored tracksuit. At this stage, authorities have not communicated the identities or motives of the suspects.

One person was killed and 21 people were injured in the firing. Children’s Mercy Hospital said it was treating 12 injured people, including eleven children between the ages of 6 and 15. Eight life-threatening patients were taken to hospitals within 10 minutes of the shooting, Kansas City Fire Chief Ross Grundison said at a news conference.

Tight police presence

According to Police Chief Stacey Graves, more than 800 agents are on the scene: with 600 city police officers and about 250 federal agents, the human toll is heavy despite the large law enforcement presence. “We had security guards in many places, looking over the top of the buildings and beyond, but there is always a risk to the public”The city’s Democratic mayor, Quinton Lucas, expressed his condolences.

Little regulation of gun carry in Missouri

At least two people, maybe three, came up with guns and used them. “This is what’s going on with guns.”, angered the mayor of Kansas City. Because the state of Missouri does not require anything special to obtain a firearm. You just need to be over 18 and have no convictions, no license requirements, no background checks and no special gun safety training. “Parades, rallies, schools, cinemas, it seems almost no place is safe”, Quinton Lucas was moved. There are more weapons than residents EIn the United States, one in three adults owns at least one.