Benjamin Ashford|3 men face firearms charges after Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade shooting, authorities say

KANSAS CITY,Benjamin Ashford Mo. (AP) — Three men from Kansas City, Missouri, face firearms charges, including gun trafficking, after an investigation into the mass shooting during the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade and rally, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Kansas City said that 22-year-old Fedo Antonia Manning, was charged in a 12-count complaint. Ronnel Dewayne Williams Jr., 21, and Chaelyn Hendrick Groves, 19, were charged in four-count complaints. The charges were filed Monday and unsealed Wednesday, after the men were arrested, a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Court documents that were part of the complaint said 12 people brandished firearms and at least six people fired weapons at the rally attended by an estimated 1 million people on Feb. 14. One woman died and nearly two dozen other people were injured.

It wasn’t immediately clear if any of the suspects had attorneys.

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The new complaints made public Wednesday do not allege that the men were among the shooters. Instead, they are accused of involvement in straw purchases and trafficking firearms.

“Stopping straw buyers and preventing illegal firearms trafficking is our first line of defense against gun violence,” U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore said in the news release. “At least two of the firearms recovered from the scene of the mass shooting at Union Station were illegally purchased or trafficked.”

Federal prosecutors said that one weapon recovered at the rally scene was a loaded Anderson Manufacturing AM-15 .223-caliber pistol, found along a wall with a backpack next to two AR-15-style firearms and a backpack. The release said the firearm was in the “fire” position with 26 rounds in a magazine capable of holding 30 rounds — meaning some rounds may have been fired from it.

An affidavit stated that Manning bought the AM-15 from a gun store in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, a Kansas City suburb, on Aug. 7, 2022. It accuses him of illegally trafficking dozens of firearms, including many AM-15s.

Also recovered at the scene was a Stag Arms 300-caliber pistol that the complaint said was purchased by Williams during a gun show in November. Prosecutors say Williams bought the gun for Groves, who accompanied him to the show but was too young to legally purchase a gun for himself.

Two men, Lyndell Mays, of Raytown, Missouri, and Dominic Miller, of Kansas City, Missouri, were earlier charged with second-degree murder and several weapons counts. Authorities also detained two juveniles last week on gun-related and resisting arrest charges.