Kansas City Shooting Follow Up: Perpetrators Still Not Named, Motive Unclear

Well, it’s been four days since the Valentine’s Day shooting during the Super Bowl victory celebration in Kansas City. We still don’t know who the shooters were or why they fired on 22 people, killing one. Half of the victims were under the age of 16…school kids. We know only that two juveniles have been detained. We also know that Kanas City area schools were closed that day to allow residents to join in on the celebration for their champions. This was not unexpected.

Almost immediately, this whole deadly matter reminded me of a Boomtown Rats song from 1979.  Bear with me. The tune was called “I Don’t Like Mondays,” and it was about the 1979 playground shooting at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego. That day, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer fired on children playing outside, killing two adults and wounding eight kids.  That was well over 40 years ago; little progress has been made since then regarding the shooting of children in public places.

History Repeating Itself Over and Over

From the song:

And school’s out early and soon we’ll be learning
And the lesson today is how to die
And then the bullhorn crackles
And the captain tackles
With the problems and the how’s and why’s
And he can see no reasons
‘Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to die, die?

–Bob Geldof / John Peter Moylett

The “Five W’s”

In journalism, we search for the “five W’s” of a story. The “who,” “what,” “where,” “when,” and “why.”  Today, I can only report fully on three of these.

In cases like this, we also look for motive… part of  the “why.” This brings me back to Bob Geldof’s writing about young Brenda’s father’s thoughts after being questioned about her possible motives.

And he can see no reasons
‘Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be shown?

In stories like this, we have to ask “why,” but what do we expect to hear? We ask “why” as if this will somehow lead us to understand. But there is nothing to be understood; it’s sheer madness. What reasons do you need to be shown?

These are the three alleged gunmen in cuffs at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade mass shooting. How quickly are they going to bury this? pic.twitter.com/xCDonOtDAn

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) February 14, 2024

Here, we see three alleged gunmen being taken away in cuffs. One of the juveniles has subsequently been released after it was determined he had no involvement in the shooting.

Why does it feel to me that there is some kind of cover-up going on here, and why is so little new information available to the public four days after the shooting?

We are not letting this go. SOFREP contributor and former ATF senior executive Scott Sweetow is on the story and will be offering his expert analysis as soon as he uncovers the facts.

Keep checking back to SOFREP for more on this developing story.