(Kansas City) The shooting Wednesday during the Super Bowl parade in Kansas City left at least one dead and 21 injured by gunfire, the fire chief of this city in Missouri, in the central United States.
The city’s police chief clarified during the same press conference that a third person had been arrested in connection with the shootings.
Three of the injured are in critical condition and five others in serious condition, a fire department spokesperson said.
Stacey Graves, Kansas City police chief, said at a press conference that 21 injuries had been recorded.
Tens of thousands of people celebrated the Chiefs, who paraded through the streets of Kansas City to celebrate their victory on Sunday in the Super Bowl, the annual high mass of American football.
PHOTO CHARLIE RIEDEL, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Aerial view of the crowd at the Chiefs Super Bowl parade in Kansas City.
The traditional line of double-decker buses moved up Grand Boulevard toward Union Station, where the shooting took place as the parade drew to a close.
The shootings took place near the station parking lot, and three people were arrested, police announced. A man wearing a red jogging suit is among those arrested, according to AFP journalists.
PHOTO ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A man detained by the police.
“Pray for Kansas City”
“I thought they were fireworks,” John O’Connor told the daily The Kansas City Starexplaining having heard “between 15 and 20 shots in a short period of time”.
Law enforcement officers were deployed in large numbers at the scene, protected by yellow cordons characteristic of crime scenes in the United States.
PHOTO DAVID RAINEY, USA TODAY SPORTS VIA REUTERS CON
Chiefs fans leave the scene after gunshots are heard.
The Kansas City Chiefs said they were “saddened” and condemned a “senseless act of violence” after the shooting that left at least one dead on Wednesday during the parade in Kansas City, Missouri, to celebrate their victory in the Super Bowl.
“All of our players, coaches, and staff members as well as their families are safe,” the American football team said in a statement.
Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs’ star quarterback, said he was “praying for Kansas City” in a post on X.
According to Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, authorities have been in contact with the White House, which has offered federal assistance.
The latter specified that President Joe Biden had been informed of the situation.
The United States is paying a very heavy price for the spread of firearms on its territory and the ease with which Americans have access to them.
PHOTO CHARLIE RIEDEL, ASSOCIATED PRESS
“Several people” were hit by the shots, Kansas City police said.
The country has more individual weapons than inhabitants: one in three adults owns at least one weapon and almost one in two adults lives in a home where there is a weapon.
The consequence of this proliferation is the very high rate of firearm deaths in the United States, incomparable to that of other developed countries.
Gun “threat”
The mayor of Kansas City, who was present with his family during the parade, said he was “angry”.
A parade to celebrate a Super Bowl victory, “it’s a day that many people hope to remember for the rest of their lives; and what they shouldn’t have to remember is the threat posed by gun violence,” Quinton Lucas said at a news conference.
About 49,000 people died from gunfire in 2021, compared to 45,000 in 2020, which was already a record year. This represents more than 130 deaths per day, more than half of which are suicides.
However, it is the mass shootings that stand out the most, while illustrating the ideological divide separating conservatives and progressives on the question of how to prevent such tragedies.
Recent American history is indeed punctuated by killings, with no place in daily life seeming safe, from the business to the church, from the supermarket to the discotheque, from the public highway to public transport. common.
The United States Congress has not adopted ambitious legislation, with many elected officials being under the influence of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), the leading American arms lobby.
In fact, in a country where the possibility of owning a firearm is considered by millions of Americans as a fundamental constitutional right, the only recent legislative advances remain marginal, such as the generalization of criminal and psychiatric background checks above all. purchase of weapon.