Terror of a mass shooting upends ecstatic Chiefs Super Bowl rally
“Are you feeling good today, Chiefs Kingdom?” Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas shouted to a sea of football fans fresh from their town’s third Super Bowl victory in five years.
Less than an hour later — with music still blaring and the confetti of celebration still hanging in the air — the mayor and throngs of others were running from gunfire, unsure where it was coming from, desperately seeking safety.
At its highest moment of community pride, Kansas City experienced one of 21st-century American culture’s most traumatic events — a public mass shooting. By the time it was over, one woman was dead and nearly two dozen other people were wounded.
Police now blame a dispute among several people. On Friday, authorities said two juveniles were charged with gun-related and resisting arrest charges. Additional charges are expected.
Wednesday’s shootings lasted only moments, their immediate aftermath only a couple hours. But in its wake, the event left a knocked-back community struggling to make sense of how something so positive could turn so quickly into something so terrifying and sad.
As the mayor put it later: “This is absolutely a tragedy, the likes of which we would have never expected in Kansas City, and the likes of which we’ll remember for some time.”
A day of high spirits, at the beginning
The relationship between local fans and their sports teams is often an intense one. And nowhere more so than at this particular moment in history in this particular town, where talent and luck and success and civic pride blended into an enthusiastic cocktail — one that made sure the festivities Wednesday began on a happy and light note.