Six people were killed and over 36 others were injured when a shooter perched 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 police, 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 street in Highland Park turned into a block-long crime scene, with flags and chairs lying around. Witnesses were told they couldn’t go past police when they later returned to retrieve strollers and other items.
Richard Kaufman, a retired doctor, described the sound of the gunman opening fire as sounding like fireworks and estimated that he heard 200 shots.
It was chaos, he claimed. “People were tripping over each other, covered in 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 shooting in Highland Park, while 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 stricter regulations can stop the mass shootings that occur so frequently in the United States is likely to resurface in light of the attack in a Chicago suburb.
Police stated that they were unsure of the purpose behind the shooting in Highland Park. Ages of the injured, which included four or five children, ranged 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.
