In a shooting near Kansas City’s Super Bowl rally, two people are charged with murder

Prosecutors announced on Tuesday that two men are accused of murder after a firefight outside a Super Bowl victory celebration in Kansas City, Missouri, which left one person dead and over 20 others injured, including the suspects. The battle started when the two guys couldn’t stop fighting over eye contact.

With their arrests—one on Tuesday and the other on February 17—the number of suspects in the Valentine’s Day shooting who are expected to face charges has increased to four. Last Monday, two adolescents were placed under arrest and accused as minors in family court with resisting arrest and possessing a handgun.

The investigation is still ongoing, according to the prosecutors, who also said that they planned to prosecute the two youngsters as adults.

The two most recent suspects, Dominic Miller, 18, of Kansas City, and Lyndell Mays, 23, of the Raytown neighborhood, are each accused with two counts of armed criminal action, one count of unauthorized use of a weapon, and second-degree murder.

Mays and a group of people who approached him “began arguing about why they were staring at each other,” according to an account of the carnage cobbled together from witnesses and camera evidence, police said in a written affidavit filed with the accusations.

The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office issued a supplementary statement, saying, “According to court records, the defendants attended a Super Bowl parade and rally on Feb. 14, 2024, and were armed with firearms.” It continued: “A verbal altercation occurred and gunfire broke out with no regard for thousands of other individuals in the area.”

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker revealed the charges at a short press conference, stating that the investigation revealed the violence was caused by a disagreement between Mays and an unknown individual.

Reporters were informed by Baker that their argument “very quickly escalated,” with Mays taking out a handgun and others around “almost immediately” brandishing guns.

Despite the fact that Miller and Mays are both accused of murder, Baker said that the evidence indicates that Miller’s gunshot killed 43-year-old on-air radio personality Elizabeth Lopez-Galvan.

Lopez-Galvan was one of the 25 known victims of gunshots, according to court records filed against Mays. Police had previously said that she was one of 23 persons, including at least nine children, who had been hit by gunfire.

In Missouri, a conviction for second-degree murder carries a prison term of 10 to 30 years or life.

“It’s me, it’s me”
The Kansas City Chiefs were celebrating their Super Bowl victory against the San Francisco 49ers, and authorities reported that up to a million people had congregated for the parade and rally outside the city’s iconic Union Station, where the shooting took place.

A record number of people watched the NFL championship game on February 11th, partly because of the increased media attention surrounding the relationship between pop sensation Taylor Swift and Chiefs standout Travis Kelce. She didn’t attend the protest, but she did go to the Super Bowl.

Prosecutors’ probable-cause affidavits, submitted with criminal charges against Mays and Miller, revealed that both men were admitted to the hospital due to gunshot wounds they received during the altercation.

Those papers said that CCTV footage showed them acting in the crowd. A passerby tackled Miller as he sprinted through the throng while brandishing a pistol and yelling, “I’m shot, I’m shot.”

During hospital interviews with police investigators, both individuals admitted to their participation in the shooting, according to the prosecution.

Four men approached Mays, one of whom inquired “what he was looking at, because they didn’t know him,” according to the affidavit. A witness also reported seeing a weapon clearly hanging from one of the men’s backpacks.

Mays admitted to being the first to pull a gun, the first to fire, and the one who chose out a person to shoot at random as the victim was fleeing, according to the criminal papers that were submitted against him two days ago.

According to the probable cause statement, Mays admitted to investigators that he was aware that there were children in the group, but he thought any of them may be armed. He told investigators that he “just pulled a gun out and started shooting,” according to the report. It wasn’t right of me to do that. Simply being foolish.”

Tuesday, Mays and Miller were still being held in the hospital, according to Michael Mansur, a spokesman for the prosecutors’ office. The two young suspects had a detention hearing on Tuesday, he added.