LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Two men have been charged with murder in a mass shooting that took place at the end of the Super Bowl victory rally in Kansas City last week. Prosecutors say it was a mundane argument that spun out of control. Frank Morris of member station KCUR reports.
FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE: Gunfire, lots of shots, touched off a panic in the crowd that ended what had been a joyous celebration. Almost two dozen people were hit, almost half of them kids. Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a 43-year-old mother of two and a popular DJ, was killed. It wasn't like a lot of mass shootings where someone sets out to murder as many people as possible. Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker says it started when a young man named Lyndell Mays had words with a stranger.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JEAN PETERS BAKER: That argument very quickly escalated to Mays drawing his firearm, a handgun. Almost immediately, almost immediately, others pulled their firearms.
MORRIS: Baker says that included Dominic Miller. She says he's the one who killed Lopez-Galvan. Both Mays and Miller were shot in the melee, Mays more than once. They've been hospitalized since. Both men face felony murder charges. Two people under 18 were detained at the rally. They've been charged as juveniles with weapons offenses. Baker says more charges are coming.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BAKER: We seek to hold every shooter accountable for their actions on that day, every single one. So while we're not there yet on every single individual, we're going to get there.
MORRIS: Kansas City community activist Pat Clarke expects justice in this case because this shooting took place at a big public event with lots of cooperative witnesses all around. But Clarke says shootings with four or more victims in urban-core Kansas City don't always make much of an impression.
PAT CLARKE: It's not uncommon. We have mass shootings around here all the time. Some make the news. Some don't.
MORRIS: Kansas City broke a record for killings last year, 185, and Baker says 67 of them started the same way the shooting at the Super Bowl victory celebration did, with an argument.
For NPR News, I'm Frank Morris in Kansas City.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
