KANSAS CITY, Mo — An event to celebrate Mexican Independence Day ended with one woman dead on Wednesday night.
Friends and family say Daisy Martinez, 19, was shot and killed after hundreds of cars paraded from Kansas City, Kansas, to the Westside in Kansas City, Missouri, for a cruising event on Southwest Boulevard.
Martinez's car was still parked on Southwest Boulevard on Thursday when her family came to the scene to try to understand what happened.
"Automatically, I just wanted to assume she slept in somewhere you know, she probably didn't charge her phone," Martinez's uncle, Jose Becerra, said. "I didn't want to overreact."
Becerra and the rest of Martinez's family didn't find out until Thursday morning she been shot and killed.
"She was innocent," Becerra said. "That didn't have to happen to her."
After the car parade, people got out of their cars to watch the others go by. Some cars were turning donuts in the street.
Around 11 p.m., someone fired into the crowd of people.
Martinez was shot not too far from her car. Another young woman was also hurt.
"She was definitely a go-getter," Becerra said. "She went through a lot of stuff but she was still determined to get it done, you know. She graduated, saved up money, got a first new car."
Martinez was a graduate of East High School in Kansas City, Missouri.
Other people who were at the event were shocked that it ended in tragedy.
"I seen families, car floats full of kids and families celebrating, waving flags, honking," Jesus Chavira said, who was at the event before the shooting. "So it's very sad to find out that this happened at event that was supposed to be happy like it started."
Becerra called Daisy Wednesday afternoon because he hadn't talked to her in a while, but she didn't pick up. He said he wishes he could talk to her again.
"She done grew up, she was becoming a woman. She was already out in the world, moving around," Becerra said. Barely, you know, she just barely got out into the world. Like I said, she just got her new car. It's not fair."
A group called Exclusivos Truck Club was one group that helped host the cruising event that started at the Kansas City T-Bones stadium parking lot and ended near 26th Street and Southwest Boulevard.
In a Facebook post, the truck club said their crew "had nothing to do with what happened."
41 Action News obtained video of the event.
A viewer told 41 Actions News they called the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department on two separate occasions regarding illegal drag racing that happened near the area of the shooting.
According to the viewer, police arrived and parked near the 2900 block of Jarboe Street but didn't stop the racing and instead waited for backup.
The viewer said the crowd then grew larger and the drag racing continued after the shooting had occurred.
After calling a second time, the viewer was told there was still an open call for the event. He said a dispatcher told him officers had other life-threatening calls to attend to.
KCPD spokesman Sgt. Jacob Becchina said the department did receive several calls throughout the night and officers responded to "ensure a safe traffic flow through out the evening."
Becchina went on to say, "We always follow the call prioritization spectrum in how we dispatch our officers."
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