Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid was in the team’s practice facility one evening in 2024 when a bullet was shot into the building and lodged itself into a wall in his office, the Kansas City Star’s Sam McDowell reported in an exclusive story earlier this week.
Reid was not injured by the shot, nor was anyone else, the Kansas City Police Department told McDowell.
The incident happened just past midnight on May 4, 2024, when Reid was working alone in his second-floor office, per the report.
The bullet shot a hole through the window and blinds before lodging in a wall between Reid’s bathroom and entry door to his office, roughly 15 feet from his desk, according to the Star.
It came just three months after the 67-year-old Reid, a former BYU player and graduate assistant, led the Chiefs to their third Super Bowl title in five years by beating the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII.
It’s a story that had been kept out of the headlines for 15 months, but McDowell’s reporting shed light on an incident that led to enhanced security being implemented at the NFL franchise’s facility, according to the Star.
Reid now works behind bulletproof glass, which was installed at the facility soon after the incident, McDowell reported.
The Star obtained a “sparse” police report via Missouri’s Sunshine Law, according to the story, and worked toward finding out more details about the incident.
The Chiefs, upon the release of the story, explained the organization’s decision to keep the incident largely under wraps. The Star reported that the incident was not well-known even among people who work inside Kansas City’s facility.
Chiefs president Mark Donovan said the organization followed protocol in its handling of the incident.
“We called down to our experts very quickly, at all levels, regionally and nationally and we sat down and assessed the situation,” Donovan said Thursday, according to the Star. “We cooperated with the KCPD, went through the investigation, and we went back and said, “Here’s where we are, here’s the situation. Here’s what we determined happened.’
“What’s the next step? From a PR standpoint, from a communications standpoint, we made our decisions and we moved on.”
Two more bullets also hit the facility that night — one struck the third floor, while another hit an outdoor air conditioning unit, McDowell reported.
Kansas City Police Department spokesperson Capt. Jacob Becchina told the newspaper that no arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing, adding that “there is no indication this was a targeted incident at any person or organization.”
“Because the building was occupied at the time of the bullet coming through the window, the case is being investigated as an aggravated assault,” Becchina told the Star.
In addition to the bulletproof glass that has been added to the Chiefs facility, which houses the team’s front office and corporate offices, the building has a security guard on site 24 hours per day, the organization told the Star.
The newspaper reported that the team has increased its perimeter fencing surrounding the three practice fields in the last couple of months, and that the facility is also monitored by multiple cameras.