Kansas City police could have shot driver in Super Bowl parade car chase, chief says
Kansas City police nearly opened fire at a man who led officers on a car chase down the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade route Wednesday morning, Police Chief Rick Smith said Thursday.
Ultimately, officers instead used a tactical maneuver to end the chase, blocking the car in before it could reach crowds gathered near Union Station.
But the situation was dangerous and officers considered using deadly force, Smith said at a news conference at Kansas City Police Department headquarters, where officials discussed several incidents that occurred during the Super Bowl celebration. Chief among those was the car’s intrusion into the secured area on Grand Boulevard, and the high-speed pursuit of it down the length of the parade route.
“We came this close to having a police-involved shooting at this incident,” Smith said. “There were many officers that were both on the ground, I even talked to a couple of our snipers that were deployed, they had the same thought.
“We were very fortunate that this ended when it did and how it did,” he said.
The chase ended without anyone getting hurt, as police arrested the driver, Addae J. Doyle, 41, near the south end of the parade route outside Union Station. Jackson County prosecutors announced Thursday they charged him with resisting arrest, possession of a controlled substance and misdemeanor driving while intoxicated.
According to charging documents, Doyle told police the last thing he remembered was getting high.
“What we saw yesterday was exceptional work and decision making by law enforcement,” said Mayor Quinton Lucas, who attended the news conference at police headquarters. Lucas was flanked by the police officers and other law enforcement involved in the chase.
“Let’s just make the point clear, even the suspect is sitting in a jail cell today but is uninjured,” Lucas said. “That does not always happen. It is heroic acts made by people behind us that we are here to recognize today.”
Smith showed a police video of the chase and described how officers ended it without harming pedestrians who were lined along the route hours before the parade.
“I’m telling you. It was wonderful decision-making on the parts of the officers that this all ended without anyone getting hurt, including the suspects.” he said.
At least 30 cameras, one on almost every intersection, were positioned along the parade route, officials said. Police snipers also were perched in various locations. Officers from 19 different law enforcement agencies, including some from Kansas, helped provide security for the parade.
The chase
The chase began shortly after 8 a.m. when the sedan broke through a barrier on the north end of the route in the River Market area, police said.
Smith said Doyle sped through an entrance at Berkley Riverfront, where VIPS were allowed to park before boarding double decker buses and other vehicles.
Doyle drove past several police cars and crashed through a barricade and onto the parade route, dragging it for several feet, Smith said.
Clay County sheriff’s detective Jeremy Fahrmeier said he heard on a police radio that a Ford Taurus had gone through a checkpoint and was headed to an overpass on Grand Boulevard.
“I knew it was coming right towards me and I seen the car come around the corner,” Fahrmeier said. “I knew it was traveling at a high rate of speed, so my first thought was it needs to get slowed down.”
Fahrmeier threw out a set of stop sticks at Second Street and Grand Boulevard that deflated the front and rear tires on the passenger side.
The Taurus continued to flee officers. Speeds reached up to 60 mph with no tires, Smith said.
“He’s running on rims,” he said. “Very dangerous.”
At one point as the Taurus continued south on Grand, many officers positioned the parade route had to make a quick, decisive decision, Smith said.
Some officers along the parade route wanted to intervene but stood down.
“We were terrified that car would veer off the course go through the bicycle fence and hit pedestrians that were lined on either sides of the street,” Smith said.
The video showed the pursuit from various camera angles.
“I know speeds are high and it was a dangerous situation but no one is getting hurt,” he said. “We have a car that is headed down the route but thank God it is headed straight down the route.”
Along the parade route, officers moved quickly to keep pedestrians safe, Smith said.
“We had people crossing the route, we had many officers basically pushing, almost tackling people to get them out of the way,” he said.
J.T. Hand, a tactical response officer with the Independence Police Department, was positioned along the route when he jumped into a Kansas City police cruiser and followed Doyle.
It wasn’t immediately clear what Doyle’s intent was when he sped along the parade route, Hand said.
“We didn’t know if it was like a terrorist attack or if it was just Dee Ford trying to get a jump on a good seat,” he said.
“We all thought it was evil intent and we needed to get him stopped,” Hand said.
The officers wanted to make sure the pedestrians along the route were kept safe, he said.
After traveling south down the length of the route, the car turned west on Pershing Road and headed toward a large crowd at Union Station.
The arrest
Kansas City police Capt. Darrel Bergquist, also assigned along route, quickly drove and positioned his car in front of the fleeing Taurus. This allowed police to use a tactical maneuver to stop the car shortly thereafter between Main Street and Grand on Pershing Road.
“We got him boxed in and slowed down,” Hand said. “When we took that turn onto Pershing (Road) and saw all of those people that were basically standing in the middle of the road, we knew we had to end it and luckily we had an opening.”
The chase ended near a grassy median the intersection yards away from the large crowd that already gathered in front of Union Station.
Lucas credited the officers’ for their quickly thinking. Their actions kept parade watchers safe.
“Every day in America there is stories in the news about police activities, what went wrong,” Lucas said. “If you think about yesterday, you’d see an amazing example of what went right.”
“In a situation where there was a threat to literally thousands, we saw our police department ....work exceptionally well in tough situations to make sure that everyone was unharmed and that includes the suspect who has since been arrested,” Lucas said.
Court records show Doyle has faced criminal charges in multiple counties in the Kansas City area.
In Wyandotte County, he had been convicted three times previously of fleeing and eluding police. Those charges were filed in 2005, 2009 and 2016. He served time in prison for two of the cases.
Police said they detained five people during the parade, including two people involved in a car chase with police down the length of the parade route.
Others were a man on a horse who was removed from the crowd, a man who fell out of a tree, and one person cited for disorderly conduct, according to police.
Star reporter Cortlynn Stark contributed to this report.
This story was originally published February 6, 2020 at 5:57 PM.
