USA TODAY International Edition
4 dead, 5 wounded, in bar shooting
‘ Isolated’ event prompts manhunt in Kansas
Four people were dead, five more wounded and a manhunt was underway Sunday for two gunman following a shooting rampage at a bar in Kansas City, Kansas, police said.
Police spokesman Thomas Tomasic said police received a call at about 1: 30 a. m. local time and arrived at the private club Tequila KC to find patrons fleeing. Inside, officers found the bodies of four Latino men ranging in age from 20s to 50s, he said.
The five wounded people were found outside, Tomasic said. All were rushed to local hospitals, and none of those injuries was considered life- threatening, he said.
Police were trying to determine how the shooting played out, but Tomasic said investigators believe there were two gunmen.
“Obviously being a bar at 1: 30 stories varied a lot,” Tomasic said. “We are trying to separate out stories, find out the truthful from the maybe exaggerated a little bit.”
He said witnesses indicated that an altercation may have taken place in the bar earlier in the evening. The suspects apparently left the bar, but came back later and started shooting with one or more handguns, Tomasic said.
About 40 people were in the bar when the shooting took place, Tomasic said. Investigators were reviewing sur
TAMMY LJUNGBLAD/ KANSAS CITY STAR VIA AP
veillance video from inside the bar. They do not believe the shootings were racially motivated, he said.
Bartender Jose Valdez told the Kansas City Star said he recognized one of the men when he walked into the bar at about 11 p. m. Valdez said the man had been a problem in the past, so Valdez refused to serve him. The man threw a cup at Valdez and left, he said.
Valdez said the bar usually employs an armed security guard, but the guard was not there that night. The man returned with a friend and started shooting, Valdez said.
“A sad day for everybody who lost their lives and their families,” Valdez told the Star. “How can you go into a place full of people and just start shooting?”
Tomasic said the bar, formerly known as the Blue Rose, had been the site of relatively minor bar fights but nothing near the carnage Sunday morning.
“We do not believe it’s random. We believe this was an isolated incident,” he said of the shooting.
Agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ( ATF) were responding, the agency said in a tweet.