KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The man who allegedly fired the first shot at a Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl rally told authorities he feared for his safety, and the other man allegedly fired the first shot at a Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl rally, according to court documents. He said he pulled the trigger because a crab was fired at him.
Experts say the shooting killed one bystander and injured about 24 others, but that 23-year-old Lindell Mays and 18-year-old Dominic Miller were protected by the state's “stand your ground” law. states that there may be a sufficient case of self-defense based on .
Robert Spitzer, a professor emeritus of political science at the State University of New York at Cortland, said Missouri is one of more than 30 states to have adopted some form of stand-your-basic law in the past 20 years, and he says he has a strong understanding of gun policy. He said that his research focuses on policy. Politics. While previous laws allowed people to use force to protect themselves in their own homes, Stand Your Ground provides an even broader right of self-defense, regardless of location. Masu.
Now, the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl celebration could be another test of those expanded protections, with another high-profile shooting in Kansas City in which Ralph Yahr was injured. In mass shootings, self-defense is already the main focus.
“This dramatically illustrates a fundamental problem: even highly trained police officers cannot be held accountable in public places, especially when it comes to public gatherings of thousands of people. Injuring others in a gunfight is often unavoidable,” Spitzer said. , who wrote the book “Guns Across America: Reconciling Gun Regulations and Rights.''
Trial attorney Daniel Ross said the basis law is a “strong defense” that he and many other Kansas City defense attorneys expect will be used in the Mays and Miller cases. He said the law puts the burden on prosecutors to disprove claims that the shooting was in legitimate self-defense.
“Collateral damage under Missouri law is waived if the person was actually acting in lawful self-defense and another person was injured,” he said.
But the defense has its limits, said Eric Ruben, a law professor at SMU Dedman School of Law in Dallas.
“Missouri has strong and robust laws, but that doesn't mean you can spray bullets into a crowd in the name of protecting yourself or others,” Ruben said.
On February 14, a mass shooting outside Kansas City's historic Union Station occurred as a celebration that drew an estimated 1 million fans was ending. One woman who was watching the rally with her family died, and nearly 20 others (more than half of them children) were injured but survived.
Kansas City was already grappling with the shooting death of Jarl, a black teenager who survived a gunshot wound to the head in April 2023 when he went to the wrong house to pick up his brother. Ta. Andrew Lester, an 85-year-old white man, plans to claim self-defense at trial in October. His lawyer said the retiree was frightened by a strange man on his doorstep.
The mass shooting at the Super Bowl celebration was a much different scenario, but it shows how far people will go to protect themselves and what happens when innocent people are killed. A new question arose.
Mays and Miller are each charged with second-degree murder.
Probable cause statements suggest both men felt threatened. Mays said in a statement that he picked one person at random from the group and started shooting because they said “we're going to get you,” which he took to mean “we're going to kill you.”
Miller said during questioning that someone fired a gun at him and he fired four or five times. His friend Marquez Harris told WDAF-TV that Miller was only trying to protect himself after he was shot in the neck.
Miller's attorney did not respond to calls or emails seeking comment. Online court records do not list an attorney for Mays.
Two juveniles also face gun-related and resisting arrest charges.
Missouri has few firearms regulations, and two of the state's cities, Kansas City and St. Louis, have some of the highest homicide rates in the nation each year. Missouri's current Republican lawmakers have largely defended the state's gun laws, instead blaming prosecutors and other local elected officials in both cities.
And Republican Gov. Mike Parson told reporters last week that he cited social issues, not guns, as the reason for the violence. “We believe this is much more than just a gun,” he said.
When Republican lawmakers enacted the current stand-your-ground law in 2016, expanding the state's already extensive self-defense protections, Missouri's Black lawmakers expressed concern. The law also allowed most adults to carry concealed guns without a permit.
Racial disparities are pervasive in defense arguments, with research by the Urban Institute showing that white shooters are more likely to benefit than black defendants.
The issue comes after Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teenager, killed two people during protests against racism and police brutality in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020, saying he acted in self-defense. This was brought up when he was found not guilty of causing injury to another person.Rittenhouse's actions became a flashpoint in the debate over guns, vigilantism and racial injustice in the United States
The shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black man, by George Zimmerman also spurred concerns about compliance with the Basic Law. Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighborhood watch who suspected Martin, was not arrested for 44 days after the February 26, 2012 police shooting in Sanford, Florida. He argued that stand-your-ground laws preclude prosecution.
Zimmerman was eventually arrested and charged, but his attorney chose not to pursue substantive claims, which resulted in the murder charge being dismissed and potentially resulting in immunity from prosecution. . But during the trial, this law was essentially used as part of his self-defense argument. The jury found him not guilty.
In Georgia, which has a similar law, three white men charged with shooting Ahmaud Arbery in 2020 claimed self-defense. Travis McMichael, his father Greg McMichael, and his neighbor William “Roddy” Bryan claimed they followed Arbery, who was black, thinking he was a robber. All three were convicted of murder.
In 2022, Mark Bennett, the district attorney in Wichita, Kansas, criticized the state's underlying laws when he announced he would not file charges in the death of Cedric Lofton, a 17-year-old black boy who was restrained face down. More than 30 minutes at the juvenile detention center. Ms Bennett said the law prevented her staff from pressing charges to protect themselves.
Melba Pearson, a former homicide prosecutor and director of the Prosecution Project at Florida International University's Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy, believes that with developments in the Chiefs parade, it's time to take a fresh look at these laws. He said he is doing so.
“What are the real limits to standing your ground? And what really falls under self-defense?” she asked. “Do I need to reconsider what my position is?”
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Ballentine reported from Jefferson City, Missouri. Salter reported from O'Fallon, Missouri. John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.
