Missouri prosecutors said Tuesday they have charged two men with second-degree murder for their role in a parade shooting that killed a local DJ and injured two dozen others who were celebrating the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl win last week.
They are the most serious charges to emerge from the incident to date, coming days after two teenagers were charged with illegally possessing guns and resisting arrest after shots rang out.
The two suspects, Dominic Miller and Lyndell Mays, were identified by the Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker in a news conference. The men also face two counts of armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon.
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If convicted, charging documents obtained by The Daily Beast say the men face between 10 and 30 years in prison.
Police said gunfire erupted after a verbal dispute among “several people” got out of hand. Baker said Mays allegedly pulled his gun first, but it was Miller’s weapon that allegedly fired the bullet that killed the innocent bystander Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a mother of two and radio host that was beloved by Kansas City’s Latino community.
Baker said there was no prior history between the suspects, who didn’t know each other.
A witness quoted in a probable cause statement said the shooting, which happened around 2 p.m. Wednesday, began after a group of four men approached Mays and asked what him he was looking at.
“They began arguing about why they were staring at each other,” one of the probable cause statements said, citing a witness. “One of the individuals had a backpack and he could see a firearm inside it.”
The document said security footage confirmed the witnesses’ account of what happened. It said the verbal argument turned violent after Mays approached the group of men in an “aggressive manner.”
A gun was pulled by Mays moments later, the document said. It alleged he pointed it at the group and chased them with it drawn, which prompted others to brandish handguns of their own and start firing.
“Mays then appears to get struck by gunfire and falls to the ground,” the document said.
Prosecutors said Mays gave a fake story to investigators when he was first questioned about what happened. Detectives said he changed his story once he was informed police had footage of the entire ordeal, with police alleging that Mays then admitted he pulled out a gun and fired first.
“Mays stated he hesitated shooting because he knew there were kids there,” the document said, adding that he “confirmed that he drew a gun first, in a crowd of people with kids, picked one of the individuals in the group at random, and started shooting, all because they said, “I’m going to get you” and to him, that meant, “I’m going to kill you.”
When asked why he charged at the other group to begin with, Mays allegedly conceded that he was being “stupid.” He claims he fired his gun just twice and “didn’t hit anything though.”
“Just pulled a gun out and started shooting,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that. Just being stupid.”
Miller also allegedly admitted to opening fire at the parade using his black Taurus G3 handgun—the same weapon a ballistic comparison determined fired the fatal shot that killed Lopez-Galvan.
Police said it had more than 800 officers patrolling the celebration, and videos from the scene showed cops and parade-goers working together to detain men who were fleeing the shooting scene.
Both Miller and Mays are each being held on a $1 million bond, Baker said. She added that additional charges and suspects could be announced later.
