Three juveniles, 1 adult injured in shooting at SantaCaliGon Festival in Independence
Three juveniles and one adult were injured late Sunday night in a shooting at SantaCaliGon Festival in Independence, leading to police urging parents to pick up their children as the carnival shut down.
Officer Jack Taylor, spokesman for the Independence Police Department, said around 11 p.m. Sunday, officers working inside the carnival, in the area of Kansas Avenue and Liberty Street, reported hearing gun fire. Upon investigation, officers found four individuals who were hurt.
Police previously reported that four juveniles were injured. In an update Monday, Taylor said that the victims included three 16-year-olds and one 25-year-old.
The victims were transported to area hospitals with non-life threatening injuries. They have all been released as of Monday.
The carnival shut down after the incident, Taylor said, and the police department posted on social media pleading with parents to pick up their children.
“Parents, if you have a child at the Santa Cali Gon festival, please come get them now! We are dealing with an emergency at the carnival,” the department wrote on Facebook.
Taylor said the post was the “easiest way to mass notify parents that we’ve got an emergency at the carnival. When you have so many juveniles in one area, it’s hard to get everybody notified that they need to get their kids.”
Taylor said Monday that he did not have any suspect information. No arrests have been announced.
Police reported that five to seven shots were fired.
“The report that I read this morning indicated that there was a fight in between two subjects, or some sort of altercation between two subjects, and one person pulled a gun out of a backpack and began firing,” he said.
The investigation is ongoing.
This story was originally published September 6, 2021 at 9:06 AM.
