KFF Well being Information and KCUR are following the tales of individuals injured in the course of the Feb. 14 mass capturing on the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs Tremendous Bowl celebration. Hearken to how survivors are looking for a way of security.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Twenty-four minutes earlier than the mass capturing on the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs Tremendous Bowl victory parade in February left one individual useless and not less than 24 individuals injured, Jenipher Cabrera felt a bullet pierce the again of her proper thigh.
The 20-year-old and her household had been simply 4 blocks from Union Station, in a river of red-shirted Chiefs followers strolling towards the large rally after the parade that heat Valentine’s Day. The bullet — fired by teen boys combating on the street — thrust Cabrera ahead.
She grabbed her mother by the shoulder and signaled in panic to her bleeding leg together with her massive brown eyes, not saying a phrase. Cabrera was being handled in an ambulance when she heard reviews blasting from the police radio.
“My mom was trying to get on the ambulance,” Cabrera mentioned. “I remember them saying, like, ‘You can’t get on. There might be other victims that we need to pick up.’”
Cabrera’s capturing occurred earlier than the one which garnered the massive headlines that day and is certainly one of a whole bunch that kill or injure Kansas Metropolis-area residents annually. That infinite drumbeat of gun violence — from one-off incidents to mass shootings — has shattered the sense of security for individuals who survive. As victims and their households attempt to transfer ahead, reminders of gun violence are inescapable within the media, of their communities, of their day by day lives.
“I look at people differently,” mentioned James Lemons, who was shot within the thigh on the rally. Now when he’s round strangers he can’t assist however marvel if they’ve a gun and if his youngsters are protected.
The brand new NFL season opened right here with a second of silence for Lisa Lopez-Galvan, the one individual killed on the parade. Kansas Metropolis has recorded not less than 124 homicides this yr. Native police say there have been an extra 476 “bullet-to-skin victims” — individuals who had been shot and survived. And there have been not less than 50 college shootings nationwide by mid-September.
Collectively it’s all taking a toll.
Survivors undergo panic assaults and really feel a heightened sense of hazard in crowds and deep anxieties about the specter of violence anyplace in Kansas Metropolis.
Each capturing survivor responds in their very own option to gun violence and even the specter of it, in keeping with LJ Punch, a trauma surgeon by coaching and founding father of the Bullet Associated Harm Clinic in St. Louis.
For some, getting shot ensures they may all the time be on guard, maybe even armed. Others need nothing to do with weapons ever once more.
“But what’s the common ground? That people desperately want to be safe,” Punch mentioned.
Cabrera’s search to make which means out of what occurred has led her to work with a annoyed native lawmaker looking for new gun legal guidelines — one thing akin to not possible given Missouri state legislation, which prohibits almost any native restrictions on firearms.
Studying of Different Shootings on the Telephone
Feb. 14 is a film in Cabrera’s thoughts, in sluggish movement, body by body, and the soundtrack is her voice, speaking and speaking. She sees a gaggle of rowdy teenage boys operating round her and her household. Then two pops — fireworks? One other pop. Lastly, a fourth.
“I think that’s where the shock kicked in, and I grabbed my mom,” Cabrera remembered. “I didn’t say anything to her. I just, like, looked at her, and I had, like, my eyes were widened, and I kind of signaled with my eyes to look down at my leg.”
Cabrera fell and different followers rushed to her rescue, calling 911, and commenced chopping off her leggings. 4 males immediately pulled off their belts when requested for a tourniquet. She remembers pondering that if she misplaced consciousness, she might die. So she talked and talked. Or so she thought.
One among her rescuers later mentioned she truly didn’t say a phrase even when he requested what number of fingers he was holding up.
“He told me [that] my eyes were huge, like oranges, and that all I was basically doing was, like, looking up and down four times since he had four fingers up,” Cabrera mentioned.
Cabrera remembers being moved out of the emergency room at College Well being to make room for 12 individuals who got here in from the capturing on the rally, together with eight with gunshot wounds. She checked social media on her telephone — one other capturing? Unreal. Lastly her mother and father discovered her. She spent seven days within the hospital.
Cabrera is grateful to be alive. However she is triggered now when she sees teams of teenage boys cursing and enjoying, or when she sees purple Chiefs shirts. Listening to 4 pops in a row — a daily incidence in her northeast Kansas Metropolis neighborhood — makes Cabrera’s chest swell and he or she braces for a panic assault.
“It runs over and over and over and over in my mind,” she mentioned.
‘An Increasing Sense of Threat?’
The U.S. surgeon common declared gun violence a public well being disaster in June, however almost any new regulation on weapons is a political nonstarter in Missouri. In reality, a 2021 state legislation — signed at the Kansas Metropolis-area gun retailer the place one of many weapons used within the parade capturing was bought — would have barred native police from imposing federal gun legal guidelines. The legislation was struck down by a federal appeals courtroom in August.
Missouri has no age restrictions on gun use and possession, though federal legislation largely prohibits juveniles from carrying handguns.
Polling of Missouri voters reveals help for requiring background checks and instituting age restrictions for gun purchases, but in addition almost half had been against permitting counties and cities to go their very own gun guidelines.
Per capita, Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, is among the many extra violent locations within the nation. From 2014 to 2023, there have been not less than 2,175 shootings on this metropolis of 510,000, leaving 1,275 individuals useless and 1,624 injured. And whereas homicide charges fell in additional than 100 cities throughout the nation final yr, Kansas Metropolis recorded its deadliest yr on report.
Punch, of the Bullet Associated Harm Clinic, likened the violence to a illness outbreak that goes unaddressed and spreads. The state’s permissive posture towards weapons would possibly supercharge the truth in Kansas Metropolis, Punch mentioned, nevertheless it didn’t begin it.
“So is there something going on? Is there an increasing sense of threat?” Punch requested.
Jason Barton was conversant in that violence rising up in Kansas Metropolis. Now settled in Osawatomie, Kansas, he thought lengthy and laborious about bringing his personal gun for cover when he drove his household to the Tremendous Bowl parade.
Finally he determined in opposition to it, surmising that if one thing occurred and he pulled out a gun, he can be arrested or shot.
Barton responded rapidly to the capturing, which occurred proper in entrance of him and his household. His spouse discovered a bullet in her backpack. His stepdaughter’s legs had been burned by sparks from a bullet ricochet.
Regardless of his worst fears coming true, Barton mentioned not bringing his gun that day was the precise determination.
“Guns don’t need to be brought into places like that,” he mentioned.
‘A 12-Gauge With Teeth’
Mass shootings can derail survivors’ sense of security, in keeping with Heather Martin, a survivor of the Columbine Excessive College capturing in 1999 and co-founder of The Rebels Undertaking, which supplies peer help to survivors of mass trauma.
“Trying to find a way to feel safe again is very common,” Martin mentioned, “in the years following it.”
James Lemons had all the time felt trepidation about returning to Kansas Metropolis, the place he grew up. He even introduced his gun with him to the parade however left it within the automotive on the urging of his spouse. His 5-year-old daughter was on his shoulders when a bullet entered the again of his thigh. He shielded her from the bottom as he fell. What was he realistically going to do with a gun?
And but he can’t assist however marvel “what if.” He can’t shake the sensation that he failed to guard his household. Waking up from goals in regards to the parade, “I just start crying,” he mentioned. He is aware of he hasn’t processed it but however he doesn’t know find out how to begin. He has targeted on his household’s security.
They obtained two American bulldogs this summer time, making three complete in the home now — one for every child. Lemons described them as “like having a gun without having a gun.”
“I’ve got a 12-gauge with teeth,” Lemons joked, “just a big, softy protector.”
Most nights he sleeps only some hours at a time earlier than waking as much as examine on the children. Normally he’s on the sofa. It’s extra snug for his leg that’s nonetheless therapeutic, and it helps him keep away from the stressed kicks of his 5-year-old, who has slept together with her mother and father because the parade.
It additionally ensures he’ll be the one to intercept an intruder who breaks into the home.
Emily Tavis, who was shot via the leg, discovered solace at her church and from a sister congregation’s in-house therapist.
However then, the Sunday morning after the Donald Trump rally capturing in July, the preacher’s sermon turned to gun violence — triggering panic inside her.
“And it just, like, overwhelmed me so much, where I just went to the bathroom,” Tavis mentioned, “and I just stayed in the bathroom for the rest of the sermon.” Now even attending church offers her pause.
Tavis lately moved into a brand new home in Leavenworth, Kansas, that she is renting from a pal. The pal’s husband cautioned that if Tavis was going to be alone she wanted a gun for cover. She advised him she simply can’t cope with weapons proper now.
“And he’s like, ‘OK, well, take this.’ And he pulls out this giant machete,” Tavis recalled, laughing.
“So I have a machete now.”
A Seek for One thing Good
Cabrera, the younger lady who couldn’t communicate after being shot, is now attempting to make use of her voice within the battle in opposition to gun violence.
Manny Abarca, a Jackson County, Missouri, legislator, lives down the road. One night, he came over. Cabrera’s mother and father did many of the speaking; she’s shy by nature. However then he turned and requested her immediately: What did she need?
“I just want, like, some justice for my case,” she mentioned, “or something good to happen.”
Earlier than the parade, Cabrera was provided a manufacturing facility job the place her sister labored, however she hadn’t began as a result of her leg was nonetheless therapeutic. So Abarca provided her an internship, serving to him set up a Jackson County Workplace of Gun Violence Prevention, a plan he launched in July in response to the parade shootings.
Abarca was within the Chiefs victory parade together with his 5-year-old daughter, Camila. They had been in Union Station when pictures had been fired — and so they huddled in a downstairs toilet.
“I just said, ‘Hey, you know, just be calm. Just be quiet. Let’s just find out what’s going on. Something’s happened,’” Abarca mentioned. “And then she said, ‘This is a drill.’ And hey, it tore everything out of me, because I was like, she’s referring to her training” at college.
They emerged shaken however protected, solely to study that Lopez-Galvan had died. Abarca knew the 43-year-old mom and fashionable Tejano DJ via the realm’s tight-knit Hispanic neighborhood.
Abarca has taken benefit of this heated time after the Tremendous Bowl parade shootings to work on anti-violence measures, regardless of realizing the extreme limitations posed by state legislation.
In June, the Jackson County Legislature handed a measure that offers native tooth to a federal home violence legislation that enables judges to take away firearms from offenders.
However Abarca hasn’t been in a position to get the gun violence workplace authorized, and county officers have refused to take up one other measure that might set up age limits for buying or possessing firearms, fearing a lawsuit from a combative state lawyer common. He employed Cabrera, he mentioned, as a result of she is bilingual and he needs her assist as a survivor.
In a way, the work makes Cabrera really feel stronger in her battle to maneuver ahead from the capturing. Nonetheless, her household’s notion of security has been shattered, and nobody shall be attending video games or a doable Tremendous Bowl victory parade anytime quickly.
“We just never expected something like that to happen,” she mentioned. “And so I think we’re gonna be more cautious now and maybe just watch it through TV.”
