Three dead and five injured after Kansas City mass shooting

There have been more than 300 mass shooting in the US so far in 2023

Three people have been killed and five others were injured in a mass shooting in Kansas City, Missouri on Sunday morning.

Kansas City Police Department officers responded to a scene at 57th Street and Prospect Avenue at 4.30am local time on 25 June to find three people dead.

At least five other victims were taken to nearby hospitals with “non-life threatening injuries,” officials announced.

Police have not identified any suspects but remain “confident that there are many witnesses,” according to a police news release.

Family members have identified two of the victims as 22-year-old Nikko Manning and 27-year-old Camden Brown.

Manning’s mother told The Kansas City Star that her son was struck by a stray bullet hours after he celebrated his 22nd birthday with friends and family. She performed CPR until police arrived.

“It wasn’t enough to save him,” she told the newspaper.

Brown was reportedly running from gunfire with his girlfriend when he was fatally shot in the back, his father told The Star.

Mayor Quinton Lucas said the shooting broke out during an after-hours gathering in a parking lot near an intersection.

Kansas City Police Department chief Stavey Graves visits the scene of a mass shooting that left three people dead and injured five others on 25 June (AP)

“If the business knew persons would be present, without security, selling alcohol, and thwarting our laws, that business should be closed,” he said. “And similarly situated businesses operating as unlicensed clubs where we have seen countless shootings and murders should expect the same enforcement action.”

Including Sunday’s killings, there have been at least 97 homicides in Kansas City this year, according to reports tracked by The Kansas City Star.

The incident follows another mass shooting in the city that left three people dead and two others injured outside a nightclub just weeks earlier.

Last month, Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves announced the Violent Crime Reduction Initiative, a partnership among police, prosecutors, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Since her announcement, there have been at least 36 homicides in the city.

This weekend’s violence comes during one of the deadliest years for mass shootings in the US, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The organisation and gun reform advocacy group, Everytown for Gun Safety, consider incidents in which at least four people are killed or wounded as a mass shooting.

The latest shooting is the nation’s 326th mass shooting incident of 2023 and at least the fifth mass shooting of this weekend, according to the Gun Violence Archive.