As gunshots rang out, a Super Bowl party descended into chaos

Wednesday's parade celebrating the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory brought hundreds of thousands of people to the city streets, a sea of ​​fans dressed in the team's signature red.

But when shots were fired near Union Station, a downtown transit and tourist center, around 2 p.m. local time, chaos erupted. Many attendees said it was difficult to know where to go.

At first, the shots sounded like fireworks, said Ian Johnson, who was selling hot dogs near the main event stage. It wasn't until the fans started running — some of them sheltering under his hot dog tent — that he realized a shooting was in progress.

Courtney Brown, of Independence, Mo., and her two sons were also near the stage when the gunfire started. She didn't hear any shots, she said. But she did hear someone shouting, “Go downstairs.”

Her instincts told her to run, so she told her children to keep moving. “We almost got trampled twice,” she said. All three linked arms and crouched close to a barricade until the hustle and bustle of the crowd had subsided.

Adrian Robinson had traveled to Kansas City from Gary, Indiana, to sell T-shirts. He heard what he thought were some firecrackers, and then he saw hundreds of people running down the street. A minute later the same people ran back in the opposite direction.

“People were traumatized, man,” Mr. Robinson said. “They were crying. Hyperventilate.”

Police said they arrested three people after the shooting. But as the crowds began to disperse, some parade goers were left behind.

Zachary Dial and his family had traveled from Richmond, Missouri, and parked their car in a garage at Union Station. A few hours after the parade was over, their car was still off limits and stuck behind crime scene tape, he said.

Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City, had also been downtown for the celebration. “I was there with my wife; I was there with my mother,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon.

“We never imagined that we, along with Chiefs players, along with fans, hundreds of thousands of people, would be forced to flee for our safety today.”

Traci Angel And Colbi Edmonds reporting contributed.