An Uber driver taking American fans of Argentina’s soccer team to a World Cup match was among four people injured in a series of shootings in Kansas City, Mo., that also left one man dead, police said.
A 22-year-old male suspect, described as armed and dangerous, remained at large Thursday.
The five shootings occurred Tuesday between 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m, in a five-mile stretch of Kansas City, three of them on Interstates 70 and 670 as they cut through downtown. All of the shootings were at least four miles away from Arrowhead Stadium, where Argentina won its first match against Algeria.
Two Argentina fans told Argentine outlet La Nación that someone in a car came alongside and fired two shots at the Uber they were riding in, hitting the driver in the leg. They said they first thought the sound was a car tire popping until they saw the driver had been hit.
They had to go to the police station to provide statements about what happened. Officers then took them to the stadium in patrol cars, they said. The driver’s injuries were not life-threatening, police Capt. Jacob Becchina said.
That shooting and two others on the interstates occurred while cars were traveling east, one of them from neighboring Kansas, police said. The others occurred further east on Truman Road, a major thoroughfare through the city.
Police said three adults and a minor, a teenager, were injured, and all were hospitalized, though only one adult had life-threatening injuries, Becchina said.
About 6:30 p.m., officers responded to a report of a vehicle crashing into a pole along Truman Road, east of the other shootings. The driver was taken to a hospital, and workers there discovered what appeared to be a gunshot wound while treating him. He died of his injuries.
“Victims all indicated they were driving down the highway or roadway when one or more shots were fired into their vehicles,” Becchina said in an email.
Becchina said detectives believe the non-fatal shootings occurred “in close succession,” from west to east, connected by the one suspect.
Police later tracked the suspect to a home in the suburb of Independence, about 2 miles further east of where the fatal shooting victim was found, and a standoff ensued. But when police entered the home about 8 a.m. Wednesday, the suspect was not there.
Officials across the state line in Kansas City, Kansas, also have a warrant out for the suspect over a June 11 incident involving an illegal discharge of a firearm, Nancy Chartrand, the spokesperson for its police department said.
John Hanna, The Associated Press
