HIGHLAND PARK, Ill., July 4 (Reuters) – A gunman perched on a rooftop opened fire on flag-waving families and children riding bicycles at a Fourth of July parade on Monday, killing six and wounding more than 36 in suburban Chicago Highland Park.
The gunman climbed onto the roof of a business using an alley ladder, police said. The attack turned a civilian display of patriotism into a scene of chaos.
Hours later, police announced they had a suspect in custody after 22-year-old Robert E. Crimo III turned himself in to authorities.
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Highland Park’s main street has become a block-long crime scene littered with abandoned chairs and flags. Witnesses who later returned to collect strollers and other belongings were told they could not go beyond the police tape.
“It sounded like fireworks going off,” said retired doctor Richard Kaufman, who was standing across the street from where the gunman opened fire, adding that he heard about 200 shots.
“It was pandemonium,” he said. “People were covered in blood, tripping over each other.”
The shooting comes with gun violence fresh in the minds of many Americans. Just hours after the Highland Park shooting, two Philadelphia police officers were shot near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway as thousands of people celebrated a Fourth of July concert and fireworks show. Both employees were later released from the hospital. Read more
In May, a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, just 10 days after a man shot 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. Read more
The attack in suburban Chicago is likely to reignite the debate over gun control and whether stricter measures can prevent the mass shootings that occur so often in the United States.
Police said they don’t know what the motive was for the shooting in Highland Park. The injured range in age from 8 to 85, including four or five children.
Nicolas Toledo, a man in his 70s, was the first victim identified late Monday by his family.
“My grandfather Nicholas Toledo, father of 8 and grandfather of many, left us this morning on the 4th of July, what was supposed to be a fun family day turned into a terrifying nightmare for all of us,” said his granddaughter, Shochil Toledo , in a statement issued by the family on social media.
“As a family we are devastated and numb,” she added.
Another victim was Jackie Sundheim, a teacher at a synagogue in Highland Park. The North Bank Congregation in Israel confirmed her death in an email to congregants.
“There are not enough words to express the depth of our grief over Jackie’s death and our sympathy to her family and loved ones,” the synagogue said.
Several law enforcement agencies monitor the scene of a mass shooting along the Fourth of July parade route in the affluent Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois, U.S., July 4, 2022. REUTERS/Max Herman
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VIOLENT IMAGES ONLINE
Social media and other online posts written by accounts that appear to be associated with Crimo or his rapper alias Awake The Rapper often depict violent images or messages.
The accounts show a man with physical characteristics and facial tattoos similar to those in photos of the suspect released by police.
A music video posted on YouTube under Awake The Rapper, for example, shows drawings of a stick figure holding a rifle in front of another figure sprawled on the ground.
Another video shows a stick figure bleeding in front of police cars. Reuters could not verify whether the YouTube account belonged to Crimo, although the account was suspended on Monday after he was named as a suspect.
A YouTube spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
President Joe Biden said he and his wife, Jill, were “shocked by the senseless gun violence that has once again brought grief to the American community this Independence Day.”
Biden referenced in his statement the bipartisan gun reform legislation he recently signed into law, but said much more needs to be done, adding, “I will not give up on fighting the epidemic of gun violence.”
‘REALLY TRAUTIZING’
A 36-year-old Highland Park resident, who only wanted to be identified as Sarah, told Reuters she had attended the parade for most of her childhood.
“Not five minutes after, very shortly after, the police and fire trucks part of the parade went by, I heard ‘pop, pop, pop, pop, pop,'” she said, adding that she first thought it was muskets, sometimes used in parades.
“The popping didn’t stop … it went ‘pop, pop, pop, pop, pop’ again and I turned and said ‘those are gunshots, run!'”
Highland Park has a population of 30,000 and is nearly 90 percent white, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. About a third of the population is Jewish, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
After the Uvalde and Buffalo shootings, Congress last month passed its first major federal gun reform in three decades, providing federal funding to states that implement “red flag” laws designed to take guns away from people deemed dangerous.
The law does not ban the sale of assault rifles or high-capacity magazines, but it does take some steps toward background checks by allowing access to information about significant crimes committed by minors. Read more
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Reporting by Brendan O’Brien and Eric Cox; Additional reporting by Caroline Stauffer in Chicago; Kanishka Singh, Chris Gallagher, David Brunstrom and Chris Bing in Washington; and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; Written by Daniel Trotta, David Brunstrom and Lisa Shoemaker; Editing by Mary Milliken, Noeline Walder and Bill Berkrot
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