Police Seeking Suspects in Kansas City, Mo., Knights of Columbus Shooting

KANSAS CITY, Missouri – The volley of shots fired into a crowd outside a Knights of Columbus hall, killing two people, came nearly an hour after a dance party there had ended, a promoter said Monday.

Investigators had yet to provide details Monday about possible suspects or what may have triggered the shooting that sent people diving to the ground around 1 a.m. Sunday. In addition to the two people killed, nine were wounded, two of them critically.

The Knights of Columbus hall, in a working-class neighborhood along a retail strip in south Kansas City, had been hired by a local party promoter called Monarch Entertainment.

One of the owners of Monarch, Bobby Logan, said the shooting occurred about 45 minutes after the party ended as people lingered on the parking lot. He said the company had security inside the hall during the party and had twice asked people loitering outside to disperse.

Police did not publicly release the names of any of the victims, however relatives and friends held a vigil Sunday night for Nathan Buie and DeMarco Harvey, both 20.

Buie would have been a junior in the fall at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, where he was a member of the track team.

"Nathan wanted to make it to the Olympics someday," a longtime friend, Desmond Nugent, told The Kansas City Star. "If not, he was going to try to have a radio show."

Harvey was going to be a junior at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff in the fall, said his sister, DeMarchelle Harvey.

The hall where the party had been held sits behind a hair salon and a bar called D'Angelo's Lounge.

Dan Blevins, 58, was at D'Angelo's and saw parking lots on both sides of the street fill up around 10:30 p.m. with young people milling around and leaning against cars. The bartender called police, who arrived around 11 p.m. and left a short time later, he said.

Around 1 a.m., Blevins said, "We see people diving to the ground, and it sounds like firecrackers."

Police would not say if the shots were fired from within the crowd or from a passing vehicle.

Police Sgt. Doug Niemeier estimated that 25 to 50 shots were fired. Police arriving at the scene witnessed "people running in all different directions," Niemeier said Sunday.

Police said Sunday that two were in critical condition — a 17-year-old shot in the chest and a 24-year-old hit in the neck — but they would not identify them and hospitals wouldn't give information Monday without names. The other seven were treated at hospitals for wounds that were not considered life threatening.