Kansas City Officials Give Update on Chiefs Super Bowl parade Shooting Transcript

I’m Mayor Quinton Lucas. I’m joined by Kansas City Police Chief, Stacey Graves, the Kansas City Fire Chief Ross Grundyson. One thing that we want to note at the outset, the situation continues to have updates, things will continue to change throughout the night. That’s why we are here to give you an update right now. Both Chiefs will be giving more information, both on the numbers of victims, the status of victims. The Chief of Police will give more updates on the investigation.

(00:27)
A few things to note that we talked about earlier. In terms of who was in danger, what existed, it is my view, as someone who did have to run at the sound of shooting, that there were a number of people who were in the very least caught up in the incident in some way. Myself, my wife, lots of families, players, Chief staff and others, their spouses, their families, a number of people who were in or near Union Station. So, many people have been touched by this incident and we recognize that. We also pray not only for the victims, including the decedent, that was discussed earlier, and their family, but also the victims of the shootings right now, who we hope are recovering inside our hospitals.

(01:12)
We’ll continue to give you updated information. At this point, we’ve talked to our federal partners, we have also talked to the Kansas City Chiefs, we will be talking to the National Football League and others, more so just to hear that all are safe who are with those institutions, and we continue to hope that all of those who were impacted are safe.

(01:31)
To the extent you have information about suspects or others, we do encourage you to call the police. However, if for whatever other reasons you have information about the incident, we will be looking to share that through different methods. So if you have information about the incident, suspects and others, please call the police. If you’re looking for other information, we’ll try to continue to give you regular updates.

(01:55)
I’ll say this final thing and then we’ll come back for questions at the end. Today was tragic for everyone who was part of it. I had the chance to talk to my wife just a moment ago who said we became part of a statistic of too many Americans, those who have experienced or been part of or connected to a mass shooting. That is something that I hope we all recognize is highly problematic for all of us. I continue to commend our police officers, our firefighters, and others who were there to respond instantly, but we also need to figure out a way to make sure that things like this stop happening in our country. With that, I turn it over to the Chief of Police, Stacey Graves.

Thank you. I just want to echo the mayor’s thoughts and his prayers, and also to acknowledge that not only the victims who were actually hit by gunfire, but there are a lot more people who are going to be forever impacted by what happened here today. As people were running, a lot of US law enforcement who were running towards the danger, also guided those who were in fear of their lives. That’s something to be said of how impactful today’s event truly was. Again, we have confirmed there is one deceased person. Our gunshot wound total has went up to 22, and Chief Grundyson will provide a little bit more context to that. Right now, we’re still working on a total of number of victims. This is still an active investigation.

(03:40)
I do want to comment on the question that I got earlier about a video of some fans tackling someone. We do have three persons detained and under investigation for today’s incident. We are working to determine if one of the three are the one that was in that video where fans assisted police.

(04:04)
Our investigators are working with all of the surviving victims to connect them with loved ones. We are also working to identify our deceased victim so we can notify their family as soon as possible. We are also in the process of staffing a centralized phone number. The centralized phone number will be for those who are victims, witnesses, and if anyone has video or any information about what led up to what happened here today. Again, we are continuously receiving information minute by minute, which is part of the delay of us coming down here. But I do want to pass us on to Chief Grundyson to give a little bit more context to the status of our victims.

Just want to say that all of KCFD’s thoughts and prayers are with those families that were affected by this tragedy today. While we were not expecting it, we were ready and prepared for an event such like this. Our KCFD units, along with our mutual aid partners that were working to assist us at this event, touched a total of 22 gunshot victims. One of those was a fatality. We had eight what we considered immediately life-threatening patients, we had seven with life-threatening injuries and we had six that had minor injuries. Of the most serious, the immediately life-threatening injuries, we had eight of those. Those were all transported and off the scene on route to hospitals within 10 minutes. So we felt the response was certainly adequate and appropriate and I commend all our staff working there today along with PD that did an excellent job under difficult circumstances. We transported to three different hospitals. We transported Children’s Mercy, Truman Medical, and also St. Luke’s on the Plaza.

Questions?

Yeah, so we’re getting-

Who are you asking?

Anyone that can answer the question. So we’ve heard people talk about gunshots that they heard near the west side of Union Station and then also gunfire and situations that happened near the fountain and the stoplight over there near the intersection. Was there two separate scenes? Was there one big scene? Do you know the answer to that question?

That is still an active scene. That is a large ground to cover, as you know, the size of the Union Station. I will tell you, we have located that crime scene on the west side of Union Station. As far as in the front of, that is still under investigation. We have crime scene investigators as well as the detectives. We had a lot of our assault squad detectives and our homicide detectives that were actually in uniform today working the assignment. So not only did you have uniform presence immediately responding to the scene, rendering aid going towards danger. But you also had detectives that were immediately on the scene that are still there and actively working.

Are you investigating any sort of connection with the earlier shooting in the day at 27th and McGee?

At this time, we don’t know if that’s connected, but that is something that we are looking at.

Children’s Mercy says that they want parents to contact them if they don’t know where their children are. Do you know, are there kids there who have a parent?

I can tell you we have detectives at all of the local hospitals that are investigating, like I said earlier, trying to connect our victims to their loved ones. Should that be the case, and it’s a child, someone can either contact police or if that is what Children’s Mercy is requesting, of course they can contact them as well.

Is there anything you can say about motive?

Right now We do not have a motive, but we are asking those who may potentially have any kind of information, a witness, or video, to contact police. That’s one of what I talked about that phone number that we’re setting up that’s going to be centralized for victims, witnesses, and potential video evidence.

Any age range on the person who died?

I do not have that yet.

We learned of a second gunshot victim who died from family, is that development-

I have not been able to confirm another death.

We mentioned that there were some victims taken to Children’s Mercy Hospital. I understood from staff at Children’s Mercy Hospital that they have nine shooting victims and it’s possible that one of them was an adult. Do you know how many children were shot, if it was eight or nine? When we’re talking children, are we talking about little ones or 17 year olds? Do you know Chief?

Children’s accepts patients up to 17-

Come on up.

Children’s accepts patients up to 17 years old. But we do not have that information currently on the exact ages of the-

But you do believe it was children that were shot?

Yeah. Children’s is confirming and we did transport the Children’s Mercy, but we do not have the ages of those patients.

Mayor, you had over 800 officers deployed to work this parade, to work outside of Union Station, and still in a matter of moments, 22 people were shot.

That’s what happens with guns. I won’t get in a big debate right now. I think we’re still doing an investigation, but what you saw happen was why people talk about guns a lot. We had over 800 officers there, staff situated all around Union Station today. We had security in any number of places, eyes on top of buildings and beyond. There still is a risk to people. I think that’s something that all of us who are parents, who are just regular people living each day have to decide what we wish to do about it.

(09:54)
Parades, rallies, schools, movies, it seems like almost nothing is safe and we had hundreds of law enforcement there working hard today. I do want to echo what the chief said who are running towards danger. But in a matter of seconds, someone who wants to disrupt anything, someone who wants to create any type of situation or someone who is very simply reckless can change not just one life or two lives, but almost two dozen. That to me is absolutely devastating and it makes me feel vastly more concerned as a parent just in the world today thinking about that.

Chief, can you tell us more about how you were able to detain those two individuals-

I’ll get you in just a second.

… who clearly caused so much harm.

What was the question?

Can you tell us more about how you were able to take those two suspects into custody

Uniformed officers were on scene. I don’t have all the information of exactly what they witnessed, but there was a pursuit, apprehension, slight injuries by our officers taking someone into custody. But as far as directly answering your question, I don’t have that information right now.

Chief Graves, you have two gunmen in custody-

We were talking about weapons earlier. Can you tell me how many and what type of weapons were involved?

I don’t have the exact on the weapons, but we have recovered firearms. I don’t have a number for you or a caliber. We have recovered firearms.

Multiple?

At least one.

Okay.

You have two gunmen in custody. Do you believe there are any others still unaccounted for?

We have three people that we have detained and that is what we are asking for is if anyone has any information as a witness or has any kind of video that may provide us if there’s anybody else that was involved in this.

Is there a risk to the community at this point?

No. At this time the scene has been cleared. It’s being held. When I say cleared, I say the scene has been made safe and it’s been cleared. Right now, we are in the investigative portion of that, collecting evidence, whether that be digital evidence or physical evidence. That is what we are doing right now. We’re also conducting interviews. Obviously, we have several victims that we need to have a conversation with to ask questions. Also, witnesses. So there’s a lot of work ahead in this. This is just a beginning stages, but we are moving as fast as we can.

Can you explain that there was like five minutes between the first shots and the second?

All of that has not been determined just yet. The number of shots, the time in between them, the motive, all of that is still actively being investigated.

So we don’t know if there were two separate scenes. We don’t know the answer to that at this point?

I cannot confirm that yet.

Did I miss this? Is this inside or outside Union Station?

This was all outside Union Station.

Thank you.

Might have [inaudible 00:13:03] somebody who was helping police. I just want to make sure I’m right with my facts. You said you have three people in custody?

We have three people that are detained for investigation.

I didn’t want to yell it out.

All right, let’s bring back ABC news contributor and former chief detective for the NYPD Bob Boyce. Bob, thank you for joining us again. You just heard Chief Stacey Graves confirm to us now that one person has died, 22 gunshot victims. This is still an active investigation. Now they confirmed that out of the 22 gunshot victims, of course I said one person has died. Eight people had immediate life-threatening injuries. Seven others had life-threatening injuries and six others had minor injuries. We’re also learning now that they have three people detained, there was a video circling around social media showing fans tackling and essentially apprehending somebody. Chief Stacey Graves said they now have three people detained under investigation for this incident, and they’re working to see if one of those person detained was a suspect involved in that video. Now Bob, you just heard this conference, this update from police. What’s your take on what you just heard?

Well, the numbers have gone up. From those series of those wounds means they’re close, nearby. So we’re in a confined environment that creates more of a incent worse injury than it was. So that’s very serious, critical I would call them. Another seven serious and the others are minor. So it looks like you probably have more than one shooter. You could have a firefight right there in front of you. We don’t know that yet. She’s not saying that. She’s being judicious in what she says and what information she puts out. That’s important to understand, the numbers have gone up.

All right, let’s go back to Kansas City right now. Hospital officials are updating on those who were injured. Let’s take a look.

I’m Charlie Shields, I’m the president and CEO of University Health. Obviously a very challenging day for the city. Very traumatic, not only for the city, but also for our staff. So we are a level one trauma center. This is what we train for. We implemented our mass casualty protocols. We saw eight shooting victims in the hospital as a result of that, but we also had a significant number of staff that were on the scene. We were manning the aid stations, so they were able to render aid very quickly to the patients that were injured on the scene. So Mark Steele is our executive chief clinical officer. He can answer any questions, talk about the condition of the patients that we saw and what’s going on there. So, Dr. Steele?

Yes. So as Charlie said, we actually had a total of total of 12 patients, eight that were gunshot victims, otherwise the other four had other sorts of problems. Two of the people who were shot are in critical condition. The others are all in stable condition.

I just want to make sure I heard the numbers correctly. So, it’s eight gunshot victims or four?

Eight gunshot victims in total who came here.

Of those eight gunshot victims, are they over the age of 18?

I don’t know their exact ages.

Can you tell us anything about them?

All I can tell you is that six are stable and the other two are in critical condition.

We saw some of your staff running into the hospital here and we also saw some of your staff that were stationed here waiting to accept people that were coming in here. What type of protocol do you train for and then had to activate today?

Yeah, as a level one trauma center, we train for this kind of thing. We obviously hope that it never happens, but we were actually very well-prepared. We had enough notice that we were going to get some patients. We didn’t know exactly how many. Fortunately being during the day, we had a lot of professionals, a lot of physicians on here present. So very quickly we discontinued starting any new surgical cases so that those surgeons and anesthesiologists would be available for any patients who had to go to the operating room. We called in some additional people early to come here to help out additional emergency physicians and some other surgeons came from home.

[inaudible 00:17:15] Lopez-Galvan passed away at the hospital.

Sorry, I can’t hear you.

We have reports from the family that a Lisa Lopez-Galvan died recently in the hospital. Are you able to confirm that?

We didn’t have anyone die at the hospital here.

What are your takeaways from today? Obviously a wonderful day here that has turned into a tragedy.

Yeah, well, I mean obviously it’s a big tragedy, such a big celebration, everybody having a lot of fun and basically it’s wrapping up and people are going to head home and all of a sudden this happens. As Charlie said, it’s very traumatic. It’s traumatic for anybody who was there in the area. Not only our staff, but all the people who were around and saw this. And so it’s really very unfortunate.

One more question.

When you say critical condition, can you explain that to our viewers? Give them a scope of what that means?

Well, that means they’re very, very sick and certainly we hope that they’re going to survive. But when somebody’s in critical condition, certainly things can turn south, but we hope that doesn’t happen with these two individuals.

Thank you guys for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you. We are just from-

All right, so you heard there, eight gunshot victims here at-

All right, let’s bring back ABC News contributor and former chief of detectives for the NYPD, Bob Boyce. Bob, you just heard the update there from the hospital. 12 patients, eight had gunshot wounds, two are in critical condition, the other six are stable. They described the critical condition as someone being very sick hoping to survive, and that things could turn south quickly. Now you heard them right there, the police talking, saying that they’re looking for help. We heard them talk about setting up a central hub for the victims where witnesses or anybody with video can actually put those in there to help the investigation move on. What does that look like? Setting up that central hub and exactly how helpful is something like that to an investigation like this?

It is critical to the investigation to get the public input, what they’ve seen, what they saw, and if they have any evidence that you could pull. That centralized number plays a big role. It’s a hotline, if you will. We also have Crime Stoppers in many cities as well, where the person will be rewarded for that information as well at some point. Now, that could tell you a lot about motive, can give you a name to run with and to give it to detectives. Go speak to this person, find out if they were there. Then look at video and see if that person aligns with video you have that you recovered, the digital evidence that the chief talked about. So the critical information you get from a hotline can solve your case, and that’s why she put it out. It’s important. It goes to motive more than anything.

But how long can an investigation like this actually take? Hundreds of thousands of people, countless amount of angles to actually see this incident happen. How long can we expect for this investigation to actually last?

It’s difficult to say. No one’s going to tell you the confidential information that you have initially because they have to run it down and have to keep it quiet. There’s a word tell the press, tell the perp if you put too much out and you don’t want to do that. So we don’t know if those three persons that they have in custody are one of the shooters. Now that’s a little bit new. She added another person to it. She talked about the guns. That’s-

Again, we lost audio from Bob Boyce. Bob, thank you very much. Again, I want to reiterate, we do know right now that there have been 22 gunshot victims. One person has died, eight immediately life-threatening injuries, seven others have just what’s being described as life-threatening injuries with six others suffering those minor injuries. We’re going to keep you updated in this breaking news.