KC mayor says governor used dog whistle when blaming ‘thugs’ for Chiefs rally shooting

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas on Friday said Missouri Gov. Mike Parson used a dog whistle when he blamed “thugs” for the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory rally.

Speaking to KCUR host Steve Kraske, Lucas said he respected Parson but strongly disagreed with how the Republican governor described Wednesday’s shooting that left one person dead and at least 23 shot.

“I certainly do think this was criminal activity, it’s lawlessness and I think that that’s troubling,” Lucas said. “But ‘thugs’ is a dog whistle in the most classic sense and I have seen this dog whistle time and again.”

The mayor was responding to comments Parson made on Thursday with host Pete Mundo on KCMO Talk Radio in which he used the word “thugs” three times but made no mention of the state’s gun laws, among the loosest for firearms in the country.

Thug has been used as a dog whistle, typically to demonize Black people as criminals.

“You just got some absolutely, be careful what I say before I say something I’m gonna probably regret, but just a bunch of criminals, thugs out there, just killing people at an incident like that and attempting to kill all those people and created such chaos that people got hurt, being trampled,” Parson said in the Thursday interview.

Parson’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the mayor’s remarks.

Kansas City police have not released the names of the suspects in Wednesday’s shooting. As of Friday morning, police have said only that two juveniles were in custody.

During his own interview with KCUR’s Kraske on Friday, Parson largely deflected questions about the possibility of stricter gun control measures in the wake of the shooting, instead pointing to gun laws in Chicago.

“Chicago’s got the strictest gun laws in the nation and they lead the nation in homicides,” he said. “You got to have a real conversation about what is the root problem because, you know, their laws are not working by no means.”

The Republican governor, a former Polk County sheriff, instead indicated that more incarcerations could be a deterrent for violent crimes, saying that “we’re not putting very many people in jail.”

Parson also sidestepped another question about a Missouri House Republican vote last year against an amendment that would have banned minors from openly carrying guns on public land without adult supervision.

“I don’t think there’s nothing in the world wrong with having these discussions of what happened with these minors,” he said. “People are doing these kinds of crimes and I think it’s much more than a gun, I’ll be honest with you. Because I think we have allowed people to commit crimes with no accountability.”