Courtside with Aaron is a regular column by Sports Editor Aaron Rigby.
In this day and age, a group of people having fun in an attempt at celebration, can turn into a horrific event, full of peaceful samaritans running for their lives.
Attendees of the Chiefs Championship parade, which was scheduled on Valentine’s Day, were anticipating a culture filled with confetti, love and passion. However, by the end of it, hundreds were shedding tears and fleeing, with the only thing on their mind being the safety of themselves and their loved ones.
In celebration of their overtime Super Bowl victory against the San Francisco 49ers, the Kansas City Chiefs held a parade followed by a rally at the end of the parade near Union Station in downtown Kansas City.
Events like these are family events. Locals and fans of the victorious team should be excited for events like these. They should also feel safe enough to bring their kids along with them to experience an environment like that.
Clips of the parade show nothing other than excitement, laughter and cheering. Watching these videos, there is a constant theme of red and yellow apparel in the crowd. There aren’t many events where fans or supporters of the same person or group of people can connect and bond over a shared passion. That is why many people love going to concerts, movies and comedy shows. And it is important that people can bond over something, anything, especially in today’s world where it seems like nobody can get along or agree with each other.
However, we have gotten to a point where nobody can feel safe anywhere. We are only a month and a half into the new year, and already I cannot count how many mass shootings have occurred in the United States. In this span, there have already been 49 mass shootings in this country, capturing the lives of over 5,000 people.
Forget bringing children to a social gathering, parents can no longer confidently send their kids to school with the confidence that they will return home unharmed. Not only school, but even to the movies or the mall, parents have to worry constantly about the safety of their children, and pray that their child will not end up being a victim of a mass shooting.
Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves, announced at a news conference that there were a total of 22 victims and one death. Of the 22 victims, ages varied from 8-47 years of age. Graves added that at least half of the victims are under the age of 16.
Elizabeth Galvan, also known as Lisa Lopez-Galvan, has been identified as the person who perished as a result of the shooting. Galvan was a 43 year old mother of two children, one son and one daughter. She hosted a radio show called “Taste of Tejano,” which was broadcasted on KKFI, a local Kansas City radio station. She brought her son, Marc, along with her to the celebration, and unfortunately he was one of the victims as he was shot in the leg. Thankfully, he has received treatment from a local hospital and has since then been released.
“She was loved by everybody in our community,” Ms. Lisa Lopez, a friend of Ms. Galvan, told the New York Times. “Our Hispanic community lost a beautiful, wonderful person.”
We as a country cannot get numb to these tragedies. And I know it may be easy for that to happen, especially considering that they happen almost weekly at this point. But we have to act on this, we have sat back for much too long on the issue of gun safety. It is a big slap in the face to the victims and loved ones of those who lost their lives in mass shootings. No longer should we be a country that gets a breaking news notification on our phones that another mass shooting has occurred, and simply think, “not again,” and simply swipe it out of our notifications bar.
That is essentially what has been happening over the past few years. We address and acknowledge that tragedy is taking place at a rampant rate, and we all dislike it and want to fix the issue, but eventually as we get separated from the event, we swipe it out of our memory and move on.
And when I say we, I’m referencing the leaders of this country, our government. To those people I ask, what if it was your son, daughter, mother, or father? How would you feel, and how much effort would you put into sticking a knife to the mass shooting epidemic that this country is suffering from?
My thoughts and prayers are with the victims, the friends and families of the victims, and the Galvan family.
And as sincere as my thoughts and prayers are, I hate having to repeatedly say it.
