Wednesday was a day that Elizabeth Galvan and thousands of Kansas City Chiefs fans had long awaited.
But a chance to revel in the team’s Super Bowl victory was abruptly cut short when gunfire rang out in the afternoon near Union Station, where a rally was being held for the Chiefs, sending scores of fans fleeing for safety.
Caught in the gunfire was Ms. Galvan, 43, who the police said on Thursday had died in the shooting. At least 22 others were injured, the authorities.
“She was beloved by many,” Chief Stacey Graves of the Kansas City Police Department said at a news conference on Thursday.
Ms. Galvan, who was also known as Lisa Lopez-Galvan, was well-known in the Kansas City area. She was a host of the radio show “Taste of Tejano,” broadcast on KKFI, a local radio station. She had a daughter and a son. And she was an avid fan of the Chiefs.
Her son, Marc, was also at the rally, and was shot in the leg, KKFI said Thursday. He was treated at a hospital and later released.
Ms. Lopez-Galvan had been a disc-jockey for more than 15 years, and she performed for all sorts of crowds with music in English and Spanish, according to KKFI. In March 2022, she was asked to join Tommy Andrade and Monica Frias in co-hosting “Taste of Tejano,” a program she had listened to for years, according to the radio station. The program features Tejano music and news.
Lisa Lopez, a friend of Ms. Lopez-Galvan, said in an interview that Ms. Lopez-Galvan was known for inviting her close friends to her garage to watch football games. Ms. Lopez said that she and Ms. Lopez-Galvan, who were not related, would often call each other “tocaya,” Spanish for “namesake,” because of their similar names.
Ms. Lopez-Galvan’s passion for the Chiefs was so strong that she was superstitious about watching the team’s games each week with the same people, hoping that it was good luck for the team, Ms. Lopez said. In fact, she said, Ms. Lopez-Galvan would not let anyone new join the group.
Ms. Lopez described Ms. Lopez-Galvan as the life of the party, and said she had recently joined a group that helped to organize Fiesta Hispana, an annual festival in downtown Kansas City.
“She was loved by everybody in our community,” said Ms. Lopez, who is an executive administrative assistant at The Kansas City Star newspaper. “Our Hispanic community lost a beautiful, wonderful person.”
Jacey Fortin contributed reporting.
