The Chiefs made the conscious decision to keep a May 2024 incident where shots were fired at the team’s practice facility, with one bullet going through a window in head coach Andy Reid’s office.
The incident had remained under wraps for roughly 15 months before the Kansas City Star broke the story on Wednesday and Chiefs president Mark Donovan told The Athletic on Thursday that the organization had gone through its processes and protocols following the incident.
Donovan said the Chiefs decided that keeping the incident quiet after consulting investigation, communication, and safety experts was “the right path to take.”
“Then we went back and said, ‘OK, here’s where we are. Here’s the situation. Here’s what we’ve determined happened. What’s the next step, both from a PR standpoint [and] from a communication standpoint?’” Donovan said. “And we made our decisions and moved on.”
The investigation into the incident is ongoing and no one has been arrested.
Wednesday’s report by The Star indicated that Reid now had bulletproof glass in his office, but Donovan did not confirm that to The Athletic.
Donovan had also said that Reid hadn’t changed his routine or moved his office since the incident last year.
“When this happened, we sat down and went through the same system, same process, and got to the point of saying, ‘OK, here’s where we are,’” Donovan said. “And he was completely on board with our process and what we were doing and how we were doing it.”
Donovan did not address the mental impact the shooting had on Reid.
The Chiefs are set to play a preseason game on Friday night against the Bears, which will mark the first time that Reid will address the media since the incident became public.
Reid has spent the past 12 seasons as head coach of the Chiefs and has led the team to three Super Bowl titles in the past five years.
