Kansas City shooting: Two juveniles charged invconnection to Super Bowl parade attack

Wednesday’s shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade was the 47th mass shooting in the US of 2024, according to the tracker Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as when four or more people are shot, not including the shooter.

On Wednesday, 22 people were shot and one person — a mother of two and beloved radio DJ — was killed. Half the gunshot victims were under the age of 16. Police have charged two juveniles in connection with the shooting, officials said Friday afternoon.

The Independent’s Sheila Flynn spoke to a 10-year-old boy who was shot at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade. Read more about her conversation with Samuel Arellano:

At least 23 people were shot, including multiple children, in a mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory parade near Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri, on Wednesday.

Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said at a press conference on Thursday that half of the victims shot in the attack are children while one victim – a 43-year-old mother-of-two – died.

Prosecutors with the Jackson County, Missouri Family Court Division charged two juveniles in connection to the shooting, officials said in a statement on Friday morning. That news comes after officials detainedthree individuals in connection to the shooting. One of the three was released Thursday without charge.

Read more about those wounded in Wednesday’s shooting:

Wednesday’s shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade was the 47th mass shooting in the US of 2024, according to the tracker Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as when four or more people are shot, not including the shooter.

On Wednesday, 22 people were shot and one person — a mother of two and beloved radio DJ — was killed. Half the gunshot victims were under the age of 16. Police have charged two juveniles in connection with the shooting, officials said Friday afternoon.

The lifelong Chiefs fan initially thought it was firecrackers going off, before a sense of panic swept through the crowd.

“There was a huge commotion. It felt like there was a rat loose or something,” he told The Independent in a phone interview on Thursday morning.

Read more from Bevan Hurley:

13-year-old Chiefs fan Cash Adams told local outlet KMBC about the moment he was shot at Wednesday’s celebration.

“I was about the second row back from the front in the rally,” Cash said. “Went left, and I got hit. I heard, ‘pop, pop, pop,’ and then I knew I’d been hit, so I just ran.”

Thankfully, Cash’s injuries were minor — and he was able to go back to school the next day, he told the outlet.

Missouri’s gun laws are considered some of the laxest in the country, with the Giffords Law Center calling them “appallingly weak.”

No background check is required to purchase a firearm, nor is a permit for concealed carry. There is no ban on assault weapons.

There are also no restrictions on gun ownership for people who have been convicted of violent crimes, and firearms are not required to be locked up to prevent children from accessing them.

In 2021, Missouri enacted a law called the “Second Amendment Preservation Act,” which made federal gun regulations illegal statewide, and prohibited law enforcement from enforcing any federal laws that “infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms.”

A federal judge later struck it down, having ruled the state law unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court upheld the decision.

Jacob Gooch said he heard a woman say, presumably to the shooter, “don’t do it.”

“I personally did not see the shooter,” Mr Gooch said. “I heard the altercation of a girl or some girls like ‘don’t do it, not here this is stupid’ or something like that. And then the gunshots, which at the time I thought were fireworks.”

Mr Gooch was shot in the ankle, his wife was shot in the calf, and his son was shot in the foot, he said.

The survivor also told CBS Mornings that he saw a group of suspicious people before gunshots rang out, though he was not sure if they were actually connected to the attack.

“I mean, I got suspicious of a certain group of people that were there,” Mr Gooch said. “We were standing on the left side of the stage when the shooting ended up happening. And right before it ended up happening, there was this group dressed in all black. About four, five, six kids with black on, black masks.”

“They disappeared into the crowd and then the show ended and as soon as we started walking around, it happened,” he continued.