At least one person died after shootings took place on Wednesday February 14 in Kansas City, on the sidelines of the parade celebrating the Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory, reported the police of this city in Missouri, in the center of the States. -United. Two armed people were arrested. According to Police Chief Stacey Graves, “between 10 and 15 people were injured”; she clarified during a press conference that she did not know at this stage the seriousness of their injuries. Earlier, a fire official said three of the injured were in critical condition and five others in serious condition.
The city’s mayor, Quinton Lucas, assured, during the same press conference, that all members of the Kansas City Chiefs were safe, which the team confirmed in a press release. The Chiefs are saying “truly saddened by this senseless act of violence.” Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes said “pray for Kansas City” In a publication on.
“Shots were fired around (the train station) Union Station. Please leave the area”initially announced on the Kansas City police, specifying that “Several people were affected”. Law enforcement officers were deployed in large numbers at the scene, protected by yellow cordons characteristic of crime scenes in the United States. According to the mayor of Kansas City, the authorities have been in contact with the White House, which has offered federal assistance.
» Anger «
Tens of thousands of people celebrated the Chiefs on Wednesday, who paraded through the streets of Kansas City to celebrate their victory on Sunday in the Super Bowl, the annual high mass of American football. The traditional line of double-decker buses moved up Grand Boulevard toward the old Union Station, where the shooting occurred as the parade drew to a close. The police, present in large numbers to ensure the security of the parade, intervened quickly on the scene, according to Stacey Graves.
This parade, «It’s a day that many people hope for(have)ent remember for the rest of their lives; and what they shouldn’t have to remember is the threat posed by gun violence.»said Mayor Quinton Lucas. “When people decide to bring guns to events (…), we all become members of this club that no one would want to be a part of, the club of those who witnessed a mass shooting,” lamented the mayor again. The police chief said » anger «, in the face of such a tragedy.
The United States paid a very heavy price for the spread of firearms on its territory and the ease with which Americans had access to them. The country has more individual weapons than inhabitants: one adult in three owns at least one weapon, and nearly one adult in two lives in a home where there is a weapon.
Hall of Weapons
The consequence of this proliferation is the very high firearm mortality rate in the United States, incomparable to that of other developed countries. About 49,000 people died from gunshots in 2021, compared to 45,000 in 2020, which was already a record year. This represents more than 130 deaths per day, more than half of which are suicides. However, it is the mass shootings that stand out the most, while illustrating the ideological divide separating conservatives and progressives on the question of how to prevent such tragedies.
Recent American history is indeed punctuated by killings, with no place in daily life seeming safe, from the business to the church, from the supermarket to the discotheque, from the public highway to public transport. common. Among all these massacres, some perpetrated in schools particularly shocked public opinion, such as that perpetrated in 2012 by an insane person in an elementary school in Connecticut, during which twenty children aged 6 and 7 were killed.
The United States Congress has not adopted an ambitious law, many elected officials being under the influence of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), the leading American arms lobby. In fact, in a country where the possibility of owning a firearm is considered by millions of Americans as a fundamental constitutional right, the only recent legislative advances remain marginal, such as the generalization of criminal and psychiatric background checks above all. purchase of weapon.