Earlier this year, a mass shooting disrupted the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl celebration, killing one person and injuring several. In a multi-part KCUR series, “The Injured,” two reporters investigate what happened to the children and adults who survived the mass shooting and are living with the physical and emotional toll for potentially the rest of their lives.
In the most recent part of the series, published Oct. 17, survivors of the shooting said they feel gun violence is inescapable in Kansas City.
Another story in the series chronicles a single family’s experience during and after the shooting. Another focus on the ethics of leaving a bullet in a survivor’s body. Find the full series here.
The following Q&A is with the two reporters on the series: Bram Sable-Smith, the Midwest correspondent for KFF Health News, and Peggy Lowe, an investigative reporter focused on public safety at KCUR.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
How did this series come about?
Sable-Smith: The initial idea actually came from my editors.
I am a Chiefs fan and I was following the parade when the shooting happened. I was horrified but I wasn’t necessarily thinking I would be part of the coverage of what happened since I live across the state in St. Louis and work in a newsroom that covers health policy.
But a couple days after the shooting, my editors asked me if I had any interest in trying to get in contact with some of the survivors to follow them as they recovered. I was on a plane to Kansas City a couple hours later.
Lowe: I believe KFF Health News approached us early on, in the days after the February 14 shootings.
How did the collaboration between you two and your newsrooms work?
Lowe: I’ve been a part of many collaborations, both inside public media and with outside media groups. So what’s important is that the two sides have a contract, of sorts, and I think we did an MOU – that’s the bosses’ job. So that outlines the specifics of publication, sharing content, etc.
As far as the stories go, we had Zoom meetings with the KFF folks, and my editors, Barb Shelly and Madeline Fox. Barb, Madeline and I had been covering the story as breaking news – I was at the first press conference held by the police chief in the first couple hours after the shootings on Valentine’s Day. So in the early meetings we talked about what we were seeing, who we should focus on, what themes might be emerging. Bram already had a google spreadsheet with the names of the victims, along with contacts, etc. That was our blueprint.
Sable-Smith: After my first trip to Kansas City I knew we needed a partner on the ground there since I live in St. Louis. My background is in public radio and this kind of intimate storytelling is perfect for the medium. And Kansas City happens to have one of the best public radio stations in the country. I immediately thought of Peggy.
I’ve known her for years and she has the perfect blend of investigative skill, expertise in the Kansas City criminal justice system, and being really good at interviewing and maintaining relationships with people who are not public figures. Likewise, KCUR has a reputation for collaborating really well with other newsrooms and taking on ambitious projects. It was an easy approach.
Can you explain why reporters should be talking to and telling the stories of shooting survivors more often?
Lowe: I’ve been wanting to do a series like this for a long time. As our stories point out, Kansas City has a very high rate of gun violence — one of the worst in the country, just behind St. Louis, over on the other side of Missouri. I cover the justice and public safety beat, so I’m often talking to families and friends of shooting victims and know full well the inherent hell of life afterwards. As you say, the focus during mass shootings is the number of fatalities — which certainly doesn’t tell the whole story.
I was at Columbine, all those years ago, for The Denver Post and have often thought over the years about the injured kids I met back then. The students who were in the library that day and were dealing with the emotional fallout of surviving. The kids with severe physical wounds, who would literally carry those with them for the rest of their lives. How were they doing? What should we know about them? What happens when the media moves on? If we’re to live in this violent society — and clearly, we do — we need to know what the victims and survivors experienced.
Sable-Smith: I think the survivors often get lost in the coverage even though there are more people who are injured by gun violence each year than those killed. Many of the survivors feel the same way — one example from our reporting is that at the start of the NFL season, the Chiefs had a moment of silence for Lisa Lopez-Galvan, the one person who was killed at the parade shooting. But there was no commemoration for the 24 people who were shot and survived and they noticed.
Their lives have been changed forever by the same event. Some have not been able to return to work or even lost their jobs. Some are still recovering physically 8 months later. All are still recovering emotionally. It can lead to a sense of forgottenness. But these people have so much to share, so much insight into life and one of the great challenges of our time.
How did you approach the subjects in the series?
Lowe: With empathy, patience and an open mind. I have no idea what they are going through, so it’s my job to listen – to what is said and not said. The injured folks were so kind to let us in to this space — to their homes, their hearts, their children’s reactions — and we treated it with the respect and reverence it deserved.
Sable-Smith: Initially we called them and explained what we were doing and the long term-ness of our project and why we thought it would be important and powerful. Since then we’ve spent a lot of time with them on the phone and in person just to hear about their lives and how things are going. We haven’t really had any stories in mind that we wanted to do. Instead, the stories emerge through our conversations with people. Certain patterns or common themes come out of those conversations with the survivors and that’s when we know we have a story to write.
What should health reporters know about reporting on whether surgeons should take out or leave in bullets?
Lowe: The idea of leaving bullets in the body surprised us both, and we found that the injured folks were each dealing with it in their own way, which we found fascinating. I think both of us, and probably most people, assume the bullets are removed, mostly because we see it so often in movies (usually done with a long knife and a shot of whiskey), so this was counter-intuitive and very interesting. It also helped that we were completely charmed by 71-year-old Mrs. Holguin, who told us that she decided the bullet in her knee was her “compa,” a close friend.
Sable-Smith: It really is a case-by-case thing. It is important to remember that it is really hard to remove a bullet and oftentimes there is a risk of creating further damage to a person if you go in and retrieve the bullet.
One thing that can sometimes get lost, however, is the patient’s desires. Having a bullet inside you is a constant reminder of the intense trauma you experienced and that can be hard to live with emotionally, physically and spiritually.
I love that you keep the survivors at the center of each story, starting from the day of the parade and then working through their recovery. How did you decide to write and record this story?
Lowe: We wanted our readers and listeners to know what happened in the moment on February 14th, but also how the waves of that day keep coming back to shore. When KCUR was first approached about this, I was worried that the project idea was too ambiguous. But I see now that that was a gift from our editors. Bram and I kept up with these folks sometimes daily through phone calls and texts. Then Bram, who lives in St. Louis, would come in to Kansas City and we would do intense weekends of hanging out with the families. During our drives around the metro area, Bram and I discussed what we were hearing, found patterns in the experience, and offered stories that simply reflected what folks were going through. Luckily, our bosses trusted us with that.
Sable-Smith: We really want the stories to feel true to the survivors. That’s the perspective we’re trying to capture. Even though these people were all injured at the same event, they all respond to it differently, in their own way. We want to reflect that because the similarities and the differences are really revealing about what it means to survive and recover from something like this.
I also appreciated the focus on both the mental and physical recovery following a shooting, especially in the story about the kids. But that can be a lot for both your source to talk about and for you to hear and then write about. What sort of trauma-informed practices did you use, both in your reporting and to take care of yourselves?
Sable-Smith: It’s been pretty important to give the survivors agency, especially the ability to not talk to us about certain topics or even at all if they don’t feel up to it. What we’ve found, though, is that many people really do want to talk to us, in part because some of them have a sense that their stories are overlooked. We spend a lot of time listening and checking in on the people we’ve been interviewing.
As for taking care of ourselves, it’s important for journalists to listen to how their bodies and emotions are responding to delving so deeply into this kind of reporting. Many of the survivors we’ve been speaking to recognize that as well and check in with us about our own self care.
