Two men are charged with murder for a gunfight on the fringe of a Super Bowl victory rally in Kansas City, Missouri, that killed one person and wounded more than 20 others, including the suspects, in a quarrel over eye contact, prosecutors said on Tuesday (Feb 20).
Their arrests — one charged on Tuesday, the other on Feb 17 — brought to four the number of suspects facing prosecution in the Valentine's Day shooting. Two teenagers were taken into custody last week and charged as juveniles in family court with firearms offences and resisting arrest.
Prosecutors have said they would seek to also charge the two minors as adults, and that the investigation was continuing.
The two latest suspects, identified as Dominic Miller, 18, of Kansas City and Lyndell Mays, 23, of suburban Raytown, each faces charges of second-degree murder, two counts of armed criminal action and one count of unlawful use of a weapon.
An account of the bloodshed pieced together from witnesses and video footage determined the violence started when Mays and a group of individuals who confronted him "began arguing about why they were staring at each other," police said in a sworn affidavit filed with the charges.
"According to court records, the defendants attended a Super Bowl parade and rally on Feb. 14, 2024, and were armed with firearms," the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office said in a separate statement. It added: "A verbal altercation occurred and gunfire broke out with no regard for thousands of other individuals in the area."
At a brief news conference announcing the charges, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said the investigation showed the violence stemmed from an argument between Mays and another person who was a stranger to him.
Baker told reporters their quarrel "very quickly escalated," with Mays pulling out a pistol, followed by others in the vicinity "almost immediately" drawing their weapons.
While both Mays and Miller are charged with murder, Baker said the evidence shows it was a bullet fired from Miller's weapon that struck and killed Elizabeth Lopez-Galvan, 43, an on-air radio personality.
Police have previously said she was one of 23 people struck by gunfire, including at least nine children, but court documents filed against Mays put the total number of known gunshot victims at 25, including Lopez-Galvan.
Conviction for second-degree murder in Missouri is punishable by a prison sentence of 10 to 30 years or life.
The shooting unfolded following a parade and rally near the city's landmark Union Station, where police said upward of a million fans had gathered as the Kansas City Chiefs were celebrating their Super Bowl triumph over the San Francisco 49ers.
The broadcast of the NFL championship game on Feb 11 drew a record television audience, in part due to the heightened media attention surrounding the romance between the Chiefs' Travis Kelce and pop superstar Taylor Swift. She attended the Super Bowl but was not present for the rally.
Probable-cause statements filed by prosecutors in conjunction with the criminal complaints lodged against Mays and Miller said that both men were themselves hospitalised by gunshot wounds they sustained during the violence.
According to those documents, their actions in the crowd were captured on surveillance video. Miller was tackled by a bystander as he ran through the crowd with a gun shouting, "I'm shot, I'm shot."
Prosecutors said both men confessed to their roles in the shooting during hospital interviews with police detectives.
One witness told police she saw Mays approached by four males, one of whom asked Mays "what he was looking at, because they didn't know him," and that a firearm was visible hanging from the backpack worn by one of the four, the affidavit stated.
According to the charging documents filed against Mays two days ago, he acknowledged he was the first to draw a weapon and the first to open fire, and that he singled out one individual to shoot at random as the person was running away.
The probable cause statement said Mays told investigators he realised there were youngsters in the crowd but believed any one of them could be armed. It quoted him as recounting to detectives that he "just pulled a gun out and started shooting. I shouldn't have done that. Just being stupid."
Both Mays and Miller remained hospitalised in custody on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the prosecutors office, Michael Mansur said. A detention hearing was held on Tuesday for the two juvenile suspects, he said.
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Source: Reuters
