One of the accused shooters at the Kansas City Chiefs victory parade appeared in court for the first time, charged with murder.
Lyndell Mays, 23, appeared briefly in Jackson County Circuit Court on Monday and Tuesday after being released from the hospital.
He is accused of firing the first shots in an exchange of gunfire that killed Lisa López-Galván and wounded two dozen others on Feb. 14 during celebrations of the team’s Super Bowl victory.
Mays made his first court appearance on Monday, but the case was postponed until Tuesday because his attorney John Reed was unable to be present in court. He was in court for a bail hearing that, if reduced, could put him back on the streets.
The shooting occurred days after Mays was released from probation in connection with a previous weapons case.
Lyndell Mays, 23, appeared briefly in Jackson County Circuit Court on Tuesday after being released from the hospital. He is charged with murder in connection with the deadly Super Bowl parade shooting.
Reed, the assigned public defender with the law firm Kelly, Reed & Jansen, had the case adjourned until March 11 so he could review it.
Mays, also charged with two counts of armed criminal action, was detained in the Jackson County Jail because he could not post $1 million cash-only bail.
He is charged with second-degree murder along with Dominic Miller, 18, and two teenagers who face firearms and resisting arrest offenses.
Mays did not fire the shots that killed López Galvan, but Missouri law allows murder charges against anyone involved in a fatal felony.
Miller has not yet appeared in court because he is still in the hospital receiving treatment for the gunshot wounds he suffered during the shooting.
Prosecutors allege Mays confessed to his involvement in the crime after being shown surveillance footage showing him pulling out his gun and firing first.
‘Stupid Man. He just pulled out a gun and started shooting. He shouldn’t have done that. ‘I’m just being stupid,’ the prosecution alleges he told police.
Mays, also charged with two counts of armed criminal action, was detained in the Jackson County Jail because he could not post $1 million cash-only bail.
John Reed, the assigned public defender with the law firm Kelly, Reed & Jansen, adjourned the case until March 11 so he could review it.
Mays did not fire the fatal shots, but Missouri law allows murder charges against anyone involved in a fatal felony.
Mays and his friends argued with four teenagers after they demanded to know why he was “staring” at them.
The footage showed Mays aggressively approaching them as his sister tried to stop him. She then pulled out a gun and shot them.
Some members of the other group pulled out guns and returned fire as Mays chased an unarmed teen while shooting him. Mays was eventually shot and fell.
He claimed to have fired his gun only twice, but it was unclear how many times he actually fired, as only seven bullets remained in a 9mm Glock pistol found where he fell, which can hold 15 bullets.
The gun was previously reported stolen in Kansas City.
He told police that “they all could have had weapons, so he randomly chose one of the individuals to target because he feared for (his sister’s) life.”
“Mays confirmed that he pulled out a gun first, in a crowd of people with children, picked one of the individuals in the group at random and started shooting, all because they said, ‘I’m going to get you,’ and him. “That meant, ‘I’m going to get you.’ I’m going to kill you,'” the accusation said.
Lisa López-Galván, mother of two and popular radio DJ, died in the crossfire.
Half of the 24 people injured in the shooting were under 16 years old
Her sister insisted to DailyMail.com that Mays was “innocent” and “protecting her.”
“For them to make my brother a monster, it really hurts me inside because he was just trying to protect us,” she said.
“He doesn’t deserve to be thrown around like that.” My brother is tall and wide, he is burly. They were little, little kids trying to prove something.
‘They had been looking at him and they came up to us, they came up and were looking at him. We can see that they have weapons in their pockets.
“We never approached them, they approached us.”
‘I asked one boy how old he was and he told me he was 15. I tried to tell him that we are here to celebrate, not to fight or start violence.
‘They had been looking at it and they came up to us, they came up and they were looking at it. We can see that they have weapons in their pockets.
“We never approached them, they approached us. I asked one boy how old he was and he told me he was 15. I tried to tell him that we are here to celebrate, not to fight or start violence.’
A woman with a large cut on her face was seen being stretchered away from the scene.
She added that the leader of the group said ‘they better catch him’ to his friends, before she tried to calm the situation.
“I turned around and heard the gunshots, and it was all in slow motion,” he told DailyMail.com.
“Everything was happening and I was trying to get to safety, but I saw my brother shoot back.
‘The bullets were flying towards him, he wasn’t shooting at them, he was just shooting. I see him fall to the ground. There was a nurse who helped us and saved his life.’
His sister said Mays was not “a monster” and should not be charged with murder.
‘My brother is a homeboy, he’s not on the street. He stays at home with his girlfriend and hugs each other. He is not a bad person,’ he stated.
‘But at the same time, who will be our protector? “People don’t understand what I witnessed and saw, but however they published it, they changed everything and that makes me very angry.”
Witnesses claimed that this man who was seen covering his mouth with a bloody hand had been shot in the face during the fight.
Mays’ family organized a fundraiser before he was charged, but withdrew it for fear of retaliation.
Mays’ family organized a fundraiser before he was charged, but withdrew it for fear of retaliation.
His mother, Teneal Burnside, asked for cash and wrote that Mays was going through a “tragic time.”
“He is in the ICU fighting to recover from several surgeries, from going to the Chiefs Super Bowl parade with his older sister,” he wrote.
“Being shot multiple times at a time that was expected to bring so much joy to so many has caused pain and sadness for everyone in attendance.”
His father added: “What was he supposed to do with those guys coming at him with semi-automatic weapons?”
‘It wasn’t his gun that killed the woman. We are not safe, the hate they have been giving to the other guy, who was innocent, was receiving death threats.
People flee after shots were fired near the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl LVIII victory parade on February 14.
‘What do you think we’re going to get? It’s a nightmare.
‘Our son is not that kind of person, he is a good-hearted guy who got caught up in a bad situation. He was scared by those weapons.
Mays was arrested on April 21, 2021 for pulling out a gun during an argument while playing basketball.
He was convicted on February 8, 2022, and sentenced to five days of collision probation in addition to time served by a county judge, as well as a fine, a 90-day suspended sentence, and two years of unsupervised probation.
The 24 injured people range in age from eight to 47, according to Police Chief Stacey Graves, half of them under the age of 16.
Another 18 were injured in the stampede as parade-goers ran for their lives.