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Kansas City Shooting: 4 Killed and 5 Others Wounded at Bar Kansas City Shooting: 4 Killed and 5 Others Wounded at Bar
(about 5 hours later)
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — The Kansas City police were investigating a mass shooting on Sunday after as many as two attackers walked into a bar and opened fire, killing four people and wounding five others in the predawn hours. KANSAS CITY, Kan. — One week after he had angrily barged into a small neighborhood bar, seething and belligerent, the man returned, cursing and shouting about gangs. He threw a plastic cup at a bartender who refused to serve him, witnesses said, and fought with a customer before he was escorted out, just as he had been the week before.
The motive for the mass shooting at Tequila KC, a small bar on Central Avenue in downtown Kansas City, was not immediately clear. But two hours later, in the pre-dawn darkness of Sunday morning, he and another man stormed back in and opened fire on the crowd, the authorities and witnesses said, killing four people, wounding five others and shattering the sense of safety this tight-knit Latino community felt inside Tequila KC, a bar that for many served as an extension of their living rooms.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, an arm of the Justice Department, said agents in Kansas City were responding to the shooting. Both gunmen left the scene before the police arrived, and no arrests were made Sunday in connection with the attack, which occurred shortly before 1:30 a.m. and sent dozens of panicked patrons into the street.
Thomas Tomasic, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department, said there may have been two gunmen, both of whom may have been patrons at the bar who had left and then returned with firearms. The police said they were still looking for the assailants on Sunday morning. Hours later, traces of blood remained on the sidewalk.
Officer Tomasic said an emergency call came in at 1:27 a.m., when there were still about 40 people in the bar. As the sound of gunshots echoed, many people ran out to the sidewalk, where traces of blood remained Sunday morning. “This is a community bar,” said Jose Valdez, 39, who was working as a bartender when the shots began. “Here, everybody knows everybody.”
All of the victims were Hispanic men, said Officer Tomasic. One man was in his late 50s, another was in his mid-30s and two were in their mid-20s. He said the police believe the attack was targeted, but not racially motivated. An armed guard is typically stationed at the front entrance, Mr. Valdez said, but he was not there on Saturday night.
Tequila KC is a private club, which means that patrons have to be members to enter and that people can smoke inside. Private clubs are supposed to keep a log of who enters, the spokesman said, but it was unclear whether Tequila KC had one. On Sunday evening, the police released images taken from the bar’s surveillance video that showed two men wearing baseball jerseys — one of them from the hometown Kansas City Royals — and asked for help in identifying them.
The bar is on the first floor of a two-story red brick building and sits on a stretch of Central Avenue lined with Hispanic businesses. It is sandwiched between a salon and a Mexican restaurant and across the street from a pawnshop. All of the victims were Latino men, said the police spokesman, Thomas Tomasic. Two were in their 20s, one was in his 30s and the other was in his 50s, he said, adding that the authorities did not believe the attack was racially motivated.
The killings on Sunday occurred hours after an employee of the Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Department was fatally shot on Saturday evening, about nine miles from the bar. The unidentified man, who was in his late 50s, was found dead inside his home, the Kansas City police said in a statement. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, an arm of the Justice Department, said agents in Kansas City also responded to the attack.
There was no indication that the two shootings were linked. Sunday’s killings were the latest in a series of mass shootings that have unfolded across the country with numbing frequency. Through August, at least 38 shootings with three or more fatalities had been recorded in the United States, data shows. Each deadly episode has brought cries for stricter gun-control laws.
Kansas City, the third-largest city in Kansas, has been jolted by deadly shootings several times in the past few years. In a statement Sunday, Governor Laura Kelly of Kansas, a Democrat, said she continued to be “frustrated” at how often mass shootings occur. “Our nation has an obligation to address this ongoing public health crisis,” she said.
In 2014, three people were killed in Overland Park when a former Ku Klux Klan leader, Frazier Glenn Miller, opened fire outside two Jewish community facilities on the day before Passover. Over the years, the Kansas City area, along the Kansas-Missouri border, has been jolted by several massacres. Five years ago, three people were killed in the suburb of Overland Park, Kan., when a former Ku Klux Klan leader, Frazier Glenn Miller, opened fire outside two Jewish community facilities on the day before Passover. He was later convicted, and in court said he had acted in defense of the white race.
He killed a physician, William Corporon, 69; his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Underwood; and Terri LaManno, 53. On Sunday morning, family, friends and regulars gathered outside Tequila KC, one of several Hispanic businesses on a low-slung stretch of Central Avenue. It sits on the first floor of a two-story red brick building, sandwiched between a salon and a vacant storefront with a sign advertising cash transfers to Mexico. Across the street is a pawnshop, with a green awning that advertises “guns, tools, jewelry.”
Mr. Miller admitted to the shootings in court in 2015, saying he had acted in defense of the white race. They exchanged teary-eyed embraces and shook their heads in disbelief. Mr. Valdez, the bartender, stood across the street, his arms folded. A gold crucifix hung from his neck. His voice cracked and his eyes were watery.
In neighboring Missouri, three people were killed in a shooting in August at a mall in Kansas City. And in September, five people were wounded in a shooting at a swingers club near Kansas City. “It’s terrible,” he said.
By the end of August, there had been at least 38 shootings with three or more fatalities in the United States, data shows. Each deadly episode has brought cries for stricter gun-control laws, but the killings keep happening. When the gunman walked in late Saturday night, Mr. Valdez said, he remembered him from the previous week and refused to serve him. One customer, watching the man’s belligerent behavior, was immediately uncomfortable.
Of the eight deadliest shootings in August, four happened in Texas, including on Aug. 3, when 22 people were killed at a Walmart in El Paso. A day later, a gunman killed nine in Dayton, Ohio, and those two back-to-back massacres startled the nation once again and revived the gun-control debate in Washington. “My intuition’s telling me to go ahead and leave,” said Shay Celedon, 37. “And I left.”
Near the end of that month, seven others were killed and a further 21 wounded in a daylight drive-by mass shooting in the West Texas cities of Midland and Odessa. A couple of hours later, Mr. Valdez said he saw the man return with someone else and sensed that something terrible was going to happen. The man pointed a gun, and Mr. Valdez said he immediately pressed an emergency switch beneath the bar and took cover with another bartender under a sink.
Mr. Valdez was on the phone with 911 as the sound of gunfire echoed in the bar, and stayed under the sink until the police arrived.
“I’m just praying that they don’t shoot me,” he said. “Don’t come behind the bar and try to really aim and kill people.”
Anesha Jackson was playing pool at a blue-top table near the door when the gunmen started shooting. She hid beneath the table, she said, and then ran out the front door, cue stick still in hand. She returned a short time later to look for her family, she said, and found a man who appeared to be in his 50s with chest and stomach wounds.
Ms. Jackson, a certified nursing assistant, said she briefly tried to perform CPR on him, but it was too late.
One of the men who died was engaged to one of the bartenders, said Ms. Celedon, who is a close friend of the bartender’s. The bartender stood leaning on a sign post across from the bar Sunday morning, wrapped in a gray blanket and weeping. The couple had planned to get married next year, Ms. Celedon said.
“He was a peaceful, gentle guy,” Ms. Celedon said. “He treats her like a queen. I waited so long for somebody to come along and appreciate her, and he did.”
Mr. Valdez said he lost a good friend who was a bartender at The Gossip Inn, a nearby bar, in a shooting there more than a decade ago.
“I’m pretty done with this,” Mr. Valdez said of bartending, which he has done for the past 17 years.
He said he had worked at Tequila KC since it opened a year ago, and that before that, he had been a bartender at the Blue Rose, which was at the same location but was renamed after the owner died and the business was sold.
Officer Tomasic said Tequila KC is registered as a private club, meaning patrons have to be members to enter. Private clubs are required to maintain a log of who enters, he said, but it is unclear whether Tequila KC kept one.
Patrons said the bar was open to the entire community. It is a small but lively scene, a dim space bathed in flashing neon lights where cocktails sell for $3.50 and premium beers for $4. Mexican music plays regularly from a touch-screen jukebox. Large flat-screen televisions hang on the walls and draw big crowds when Latino boxers headline matches. The bar does not serve food, but people often bring home-cooked meals to celebrate special occasions.
“We have no problems here, no problems at all,” Mr. Valdez said Sunday, shaking his head in disbelief over what had transpired just a few hours earlier.
Iliana Magra contributed reporting from London.