‘It just puts a pause on everything.’ Witnesses describe shooting scene at Union Station

As Kansas City’s Super Bowl victory rally was wrapping up Wednesday afternoon at Union Station, Chiefs fan John O’Connor was standing stage left when chaos erupted.

O’Connor, of Kansas City, was turning to leave when he heard the gunfire. People began running away to get to safety.

“It sounded like fireworks,” O’Connor said. “It sounded like a ton of very rapid succession, very quick shots. So, I’d say 15 to 20 in a very short amount of time.

“I didn’t really take off to start. A lot of people did. And then it kinda just seemed like someone was hurt and people were running more and more.”

A massive police presence descended on Union Station. As of Wednesday evening, one person had been fatally shot and 21 others injured by gunfire, according to Kansas City Interim Fire Chief Ross Grundyson.

O’Connor hunkered down with others in a nearby garage. It sounded to him as if there may have been some return fire at one point coming from Union Station.

“I don’t even know at that point because there was a lot of confusion,” O’Connor said.

LeAndre Allen and Spencer Johnson were walking around outside University Health Hospital, praying for those inside.

“We’re just going to pray around the grounds,” Johnson said. “There’s nothing else to do.”

Both were at Union Station when the shooting occurred.

“The shooter was behind me,” Allen said. “… That guy took off right into the crowd in front of us and everyone being able, you know, started panicking and stuff like that.”

Johnson said a girl she knows broke her leg at the scene. She said parents were quickly gathering their children.

“It was so many children just having to be picked up,” she said. “It was just alarming. It was just, it was a scary sight.”

Sam Castro, an 18-year-old University of Kansas student from St. Louis, said he saw people running out of Union Station a little before 2 p.m. “We just got here, so it’s kind of crazy,” he said.

One parade-goer said he heard a single shot near a security post east of the stage. “It was someone within feet of me,” said Shawn Grew, 46, of Garden City. His daughter, Alyssa, 21, had gotten into Union Station and he was still waiting.

Steven Bloomer, of Belton, was at Union Station with his girlfriend and younger brother after snagging a great spot for the rally.

As the crowd was clearing out afterward, the jubilation quickly turned to frenzy.

“We just heard the gunshots and a lot of people running, and I told everybody to stay where they are, don’t move — to get into the crowd, you could get trampled and a lot of things can happen,” said Bloomer, of Belton. “(I said), ‘Stay here, hold my hand, don’t move. It gets worse if you run.’”

Bloomer described the gunshots as “not like super fast or repetitive.”

“After like the fourth one, we all got pushed back farther to the east side,” he said. “All the shots were on the west side of Union Station, and the officers I talked to were all saying that they were barricaded inside Union Station.”

He said police told him they had the first shooter in custody.

“They did tell me that there were injuries,” he said. “They did not know about fatalities.”

Bloomer said police also told him there were multiple shooters.

“They did tell me that the extra shooters after the first one were inside Union Station and that they were armed with rifles but they weren’t sure what caliber, and they were taking care of it — they had them surrounded,” he said.

He said he was still in disbelief that something like this could happen on a day the city came together in a massive showing of celebration.

“I’ve been here every time for the Royals and all the Chiefs’ parades,” he said. “And we go to a lot of concerts and a lot of stuff publicly around here and we’ve never, ever had an issue.

“I never thought it would happen in Kansas City, Missouri. Ever.”

Jennifer Wilbers and her son, Landon, who came to the parade from Jefferson City, said they also witnessed the shootings.

“I was standing over there on the edge trying to see if I could catch a football player coming out to try and get a picture with them,” Landon Wilbers said. “And I just heard shots ringing off, so we ran. And I looked on my left, and there was somebody on the ground.”

Jennifer Wilbers said police directed them to leave the area.

“And then they told us we had to go up this road, but then somebody got shot up here,” she said. “And we’ve got two people missing. We’re just kind of walking aimlessly.”

Ellie Lutz and Kenney Douthat, of Ottawa, Kansas, caught the bus at Oak Park Mall and rode to the parade and rally.

“We were down by the front, we were leaving and then people just started running and people were running into us,” said Lutz, who became engaged to Douthat in September. “People ran into us and people were freaking out, and I didn’t realize that it was a real shooting until I saw people crying and really freaking out about it.”

Lutz said one little girl had gotten lost and they were trying to help her find her mother.

“So I was just kind of trying to make sure she stayed close to me,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure she was safe.”

Douthat said they saw multiple shooting victims. One victim was in the street, he said, and another was in a grassy area near the street.

“There was one who was lying on the ground, people around them and their hands were shaking,” Lutz said. “There was another one on the ground, and they had people pushing down on their chest. I think they were trying to stop bleeding …”

As they stood near the shooting scene shortly afterward, the two were still trying to process what they’d just experienced.

“You hear about it all of the time, and like it’s a matter of time till it happens to everybody — it’s messed up,” Lutz said. “I’ve seen fights, but I’ve never seen anyone actually get shot. It’s terrible.”

Friends Reese Randall, 20, and Shayla Flowers, 21, said they were close enough to the rally stage to possibly meet Chiefs players when they heard a bang echo through the crowd.

“It was like a delayed reaction, like we heard it and just kind of looked at each other,” Randall said. “And then everyone dropped to the ground.

“Bigger, grown men were trying to block us just in case. Obviously, there wasn’t really anything to hide behind other than people.”

Randall said fans immediately started taking care of each other, including a woman who appeared to be having a panic attack near her.

“It was a situation like you see on the news and you think will only happen in New York or a bigger city,” Randall said.

“But seeing it in your home city when you’re trying to celebrate something positive like a Super Bowl, where you’re trying to celebrate with friends, it just puts a pause on everything and makes you realize this can happen to your city, any day.”