HIGHLAND PARK, Ill., July 4 (Reuters) – A gunman on a rooftop opened fire Monday on families waving flags and children riding bicycles in a July 4 parade, killing six and injuring more than 36 in the Chicago suburbs of Highland. Park.
The gunman climbed onto the roof of a business with a ladder in an alley, police said. The attack turned a civic display of patriotism into a scene of chaos.
Hours later, police announced he had a suspect in custody after Robert E. Crimo III, 22, turned himself in to authorities.
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Highland Park’s main street became a crime scene spanning blocks, scattered chairs and abandoned flags. Witnesses who later returned to retrieve strollers and other objects said they could not go beyond the police tape.
“It looked like they were fireworks,” said retired doctor Richard Kaufman, who was in front of the street from where the gunman opened fire, adding that he heard about 200 shots.
“It was a pandemonium,” he said. “People were covered in blood tripping over each other.”
The shooting comes with fresh armed violence on the minds of many Americans. A few hours after the shooting in Highland Park, two Philadelphia police bids were fired near Benjamin Franklin Parkway as thousands of people held a July 4th concert and fireworks show. The two officers were later discharged from the hospital. Read more
In May, a gunman killed 19 schoolchildren and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, just 10 days after a man shot dead 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. Read more
The attack on the Chicago suburbs is likely to revive the arms control debate and whether stricter measures can prevent the mass shootings that happen so often in the United States.
Police said they did not know the reason for the shooting in Highland Park. The injured were between 8 and 85 years old, including four or five children.
Nicolas Toledo, a 70-year-old man, was the first victim identified late Monday by his family.
“My grandfather Nicolas Toledo, father of 8 children and grandfather of many left us this morning of July 4th, what was supposed to be a fun family day turned into a horrible nightmare for everyone,” said his granddaughter, Xochil Toledo, in a statement issued by the family on social media.
“As a family we are broken and asleep,” he added.
Another victim was Jacki Sundheim, a teacher at a synagogue in Highland Park. The North Shore Congregation Israel confirmed his death in an email to congregants.
“There are not enough words to express the depth of our grief over Jacki’s death and her sympathy for her family and loved ones,” the synagogue said.
Several law enforcement departments control the scene of a mass shooting on a July 4 parade route in the affluent Chicago suburbs of Highland Park, Illinois, United States, on July 4, 2022. REUTERS / Max Herman
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VIOLENT IMAGES ONLINE
Social media and other online posts written for accounts that appeared to be associated with Crimo or his rapper alias, Awake The Rapper, often depicted violent images or messages.
The stories showed a man with physical features 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, showed drawings of a stick figure holding a rifle in front of another figure lying on the ground.
In a different video, a bloody stick figure is shown in front of police cars. Reuters was unable to verify whether the YouTube account belonged to Crimo, although the account was canceled on Monday after he was named a suspect.
A YouTube spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
President Joe Biden said he and his wife Jill were “swept away by the senseless gun violence that has once again caused pain to an American community on this Independence Day.”
Biden referred in his statement to the recently signed bipartisan arms reform legislation, but said much more needed to be done and added: “I will not give up fighting the epidemic of armed violence.”
“REALLY TRAUMATING”
A 36-year-old Highland Park native who wanted to be identified as Sara told Reuters she had attended the parade most years since her childhood.
“Not even five minutes later, very soon after, the police and fire trucks had passed part of the parade, I heard‘ pop, pop, pop, pop, pop ’,” he said, adding that he first went to think they were muskets that were sometimes used. in parades.
“The explosions didn’t stop … again it was ‘pop, pop, pop, pop, pop’ and I turned around and said, ‘These are shots, run!’
The population of Highland Park is 30,000 and nearly 90% white, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. About a third of the population is Jewish, according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency.
Following the Uvalde and Buffalo shootings, Congress last month approved its first major federal gun reform in three decades, providing federal funding to states that administer “red flag” laws aimed at eliminating the weapons of people considered dangerous.
The law does not prohibit the sale of assault rifles or high-capacity magazines, but it does take some steps for background checks allowing access to information on major crimes committed by minors. Read more
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Report by Brendan O’Brien and Eric Cox; Additional report Caroline Stauffer in Chicago; Kanishka Singh, Chris Gallagher, David Brunnstrom and Chris Bing in Washington; and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; Written by Daniel Trotta, David Brunnstrom and Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Mary Milliken, Noeleen Walder and Bill Berkrot
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