There is nowhere on American soil safe from gun violence.
The Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade ended tragically. A disagreement in a nearby parking garage ended with one dead and 21 injured. Two people’s selfish, infuriating decision to let a confrontation get violent led to a mother of two’s death and put several wide-eyed kids ready to celebrate the makings of a dynasty into intensive care.
The two men charged – Lyndell Mays and Dominic Miller – both tried to talk their way out of one of the most public mass shootings in recent memory. According to court documents, both men denied shooting anyone at the parade. Once police told them there were security cameras in the garage, they immediately crumbled. Mays even had the audacity to say he hesitated shooting “because he knew there were kids there.”
The most infuriating part of this whole ordeal is how nonchalant the whole shooting seems to be.
“When asked why Lyndell Mays advanced on them to begin with, he replied, ‘Stupid, man,’” cops wrote in the documents obtained by TMZ. “‘Just pulled a gun out and started shooting. I shouldn’t have done that. Just being stupid.’”
“Stupid” shouldn’t begin to describe these actions. Killing a woman and putting 21 people in the hospital should not get the same “shouldn’t have done that” admission that a middle schooler gets for drawing on a bathroom stall. “Just being stupid” shouldn’t result in hosts of Americans not feeling safe enough to celebrate a championship in public.
These men are idiots to their core. For bringing guns to the parade, for escalating a confrontation into a shooting, and for playing it all off like it’s nothing. These shootings happen routinely in America – this one was the 58th mass shooting of 2024. Kansas City is no stranger to the horrors of mass gun violence, as this marked the area’s 25th of the last five years. Even with so many places made to feel unsafe in the wake of gun violence, sports are often the escapist panacea many need to find joy.
Diving into sports in the wake of tragedy is as American as it gets. Just look at the New Orleans Saints in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, or David Ortiz’s rallying speech after the Boston Marathon bombing. We epitomized the entirety of the Cold War with one Olympic hockey game. A nation still reeling in the months after 9/11 came together to watch George Bush put one over the plate at the World Series. Instead of sports being that escape, two morons have now forever tainted championship parades for thousands of Americans.
That Thursday should have been a day to celebrate. It was a moment to enshrine the Chiefs as a true dynasty, elevating Travis Kelce and Chris Jones to true Hall of Fame status and chiseling Patrick Mahomes onto the quarterback Mount Rushmore. That day should have sparked conversations of three-peats or G.O.A.T. talk rumblings for Mahomes.
Instead, we mourned and asked in futility how this could keep happening.
Even worse, Mays’ family set up a GoFundMe account to help him get through this “tragic time.”
According to the New York Post:
The fundraiser had reportedly raised $100 for Mays’ medical bills before he was charged Tuesday with second-degree murder, two counts of armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon.
