Six people were killed and over 36 others were injured when a shooter situated on a rooftop opened fire on families waving flags and kids riding bikes at a Fourth of July parade on Monday in the Highland Park neighborhood of Chicago.
According to authorities, the shooter used a ladder in an alley to reach the roof of a building. An act of civic patriotism was turned into a scene of mayhem by the attack.
Police made an arrest announcement several hours later after 22-year-old Robert E. Crimo III turned himself in.
The main thoroughfare in Highland Park turned into a block-long crime scene, with flags and chairs lying around. Witnesses were informed they couldn’t go past police tape when they later returned to retrieve strollers and other items.
Richard Kaufman, a retired doctor, described the sound of the attacker opened fire as sounding like fireworks and estimated that he heard 200 rounds.
It was chaos, he claimed. “People were tripping over each other, covered with blood.”
Many Americans are still thinking about gun violence as of the time of the shooting. Two Philadelphia police officers were shot near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway just hours after the incident in Highland Park, as thousands of people were enjoying a Fourth of July concert and fireworks display. Later, the hospitals released both police officers.
Just ten days after a man shot and killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York in May, he killed 19 schoolchildren and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
The debate over gun control and whether stronger regulations can stop the mass shootings that occur so frequently in the United States is expected to resurface in light of the attack in a Chicago suburb.
Police stated that they were unsure of the purpose behind the gunshot in Highland Park. Ages of the injured, which included four or five youngsters, varied from 8 to 85.
As of late Monday, Nicolas Toledo, a man in his 70s, was the first victim to be named by his family.
The family released a statement on July 4th that read, “My grandfather Nicolas Toledo, father of eight and grandfather to many, departed us this morning. What was supposed to be a happy family day turned into a dreadful nightmare for us all.”
As a family, she continued, “we are numb and broken.”
Jacki Sundheim, a teacher at a Highland Park synagogue, was another victim. In an email to members, the North Shore Congregation Israel announced her passing.
ONLINE IMAGES OF VIOLENCE
Violence was frequently described in social media posts and other online writing from accounts that seemed to be connected to Crimo or his rapper alias, Awake The Rapper.
The accounts depicted a man with physical traits and tattoos on his face that matched those in the suspect’s released police photos.
A single audiovisual work labeled Awake, For instance, The Rapper displayed sketches of a stick figure carrying a rifle standing in front of another stick figure sprawled out on the ground.
A stick person is seen bleeding in front of police cruisers in another video. Even though the YouTube account was deleted on Monday after Crimo was declared a suspect, reporters were unable to confirm whether it belonged to him.
An inquiry for comment was not answered by a YouTube spokesperson.
“Shocked by the terrible gun violence that has yet again brought misery to an American community on this Independence Day,” President Joe Biden said of himself and his wife Jill.
Although he recently signed bipartisan gun-reform legislation, Biden mentioned it in his address and stressed, “I’m not going to give up battling the pandemic of gun violence.”
TRULY TRAUMATIZING
A 36-year-old Highland Park native who asked to be known only as Sara told reporters, that she has been to the parade every year since she was a young child.
Not even five minutes after the police and fire trucks portion of the procession had passed, she recalled, “very shortly after, I had heard ‘pop, pop, pop, pop,'” adding that at first, she had assumed they were the muskets occasionally used in parades.
The popping continued, and I turned and said, “Those are pistol bullets, run!” as it continued to go “pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.”
The US Census Bureau estimates that 30,000 people live in Highland Park, with over 90% of them being white. Jewish people make up around a third of the population, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Following the massacres in Uvalde and Buffalo, Congress passed last month the first significant federal gun legislation in three decades, giving federal cash to states that implement “red flag” laws that aim to take guns away from people who are deemed dangerous.
Although the bill does not out rightly prohibit the sale of assault-style rifles or large-capacity magazines, it does advance background checks by enabling access to data on serious crimes committed by children.
