ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Two local police officials praised the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department for how the department handled the shootings following the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl Parade Wednesday.
St. Louis County Police Lt. Colonel Jason Law and Ellisville Police Chief Steve Lewis joined KMOX's Total Information A.M. Thursday and both praised the department with how it handled the situation.
"Just from my observation, and I haven't talked to anyone from KCPD, but they did a phenomenal job on the response," said Lewis. "It was an incident where we saw acts of heroism. We saw civilians get involved, responded and reacted and of course, you saw the men and women of the police department, highway patrol, a lot of those municipal police agencies responding and reacting the way they are trained to do in an active shooter incident."
Law also praised the department, while also giving insight that police departments, like the KCPD, have plans in place in case a mass shooting at a large event like a parade occurs.
"What people don't realize behind the scenes before these events even unfold is that there's processes, procedures that were put in together just in case of something like this," said Law. "The Kansas City Police Department was very organized, especially what I saw on TV, they had the resources in place to take care of any type of problem that would happen."
Law says something that street crime like the one that occurred at the parade is hard for departments to prepare for, but thought the department handling was terrific.
"All you can do is have the resources in place to handle such an incident and I thought (KCPD) were effective at what they did."
Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said that the 22 people injured in the shooting ranged between the ages of 8 and 47 years old, half of whom were under the age of 16. A mother of two, who was a local Radio D.J. in Kansas City, was also killed.
Three people were detained — including two juveniles — but no charges have been filed yet, Graves said. Police are calling for witnesses, people with cellphone footage and victims of the violence to call a dedicated hotline.
