Kansas City shooting tore through civic fabric. Did it also end sports championship parades as we know them?

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As Chris Jones led crowd chants for a three-peat, it was fun for Kansas City Chiefs fans to envision what could happen in February of 2025. After Jones (perhaps inebriated) said he would be back for the 2024 season, you could forgive an exuberant Chiefs fan for dreaming of a third consecutive Super Bowl parade and fourth in six seasons.

Just like in 2020 and in 2023, Wednesday’s parade down Grand Street culminated with a rally in front of Union Station. But minutes after Travis Kelce serenaded the crowd with an off-key version of “Friends in Low Places,” chaos ensued. One person, Elizabeth Galvan, was killed and over 20 people were shot in yet another mass shooting in America.

Now, Kansas City grieves for Galvan and those who were wounded. As police work to find a motive for the shooting after three people were detained, the city will have to soon wrestle with another question: Will it ever have another championship parade like this again?

The area in front of the historic train station has become the site of all of Kansas City’s huge gatherings. The Royals celebrated their 2015 World Series title there and the 2023 NFL Draft was held in the same spot where the Chiefs have soaked in their recent Super Bowl wins.

All four of the championship parades have followed the same route; players, coaches, staff and dignitaries are carried south through downtown on Grand before getting out and celebrating in front of thousands gathered in front of Liberty Memorial.

On the Monday and Tuesday after the Super Bowl, the theme around the city I love was how good we had gotten at hosting parades. A car got into the parade route before it began in 2020 and led to a brief chase, but the four parades since 2015 had largely gone off without major incident.

Until now. There were over 800 police officers from Kansas City and the surrounding areas in attendance on Wednesday. The presence of all those good men and women with a gun didn’t stop this from…

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Publish date : 2024-02-15 16:10:36

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