Hank Hunter, a Kansas high school sophomore, said he heard shots in the distance while watching the rally with a friend. Initially, they didn’t know what it was, but then, “like a chain reaction,” people started hitting the ground.
They ran to jump over a barricade, and his friend slammed his head into the concrete, Hunter said. A security guard ushered his friend into Union Station, which was closed to the general public, as the Chiefs players and coaches prepared to leave on buses. There, coach Andy Reid consoled his friend and “just tried to comfort him and calm him down.”
One video of the shooting’s aftermath that was posted on social media showed someone apparently performing chest compressions on a victim as another, seemingly writhing in pain, lay on the ground nearby. People screamed in the background.
The slain woman was identified by radio station KKFI-FM as Lisa Lopez-Galvan, host of “Taste of Tejano.”
Lopez-Galvan, whose DJ name was “Lisa G,” 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.
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.
University Health Truman Medical Center reported that three people with gunshot wounds were still being treated there Thursday, including two in critical condition. One was a man who survived only because staff got him to the operating room within five minutes of arrival, Dr. Dustin Neel said.
St. Luke’s Hospital spokesperson Emily Hohenberg said one gunshot victim was upgraded from critical to serious condition.