The shooting occurred in the suburb of Highland Park, to the north of Chicago, Illinois, one of five states where freely carrying a firearm in a public place is prohibited.
Highland Park Township Police Chief Chris O’Neill told a news conference that the shooter is a white male between 18 and 20 years old and with long black hair, who was wearing a white or light blue shirt and is still a fugitive. The FBI later identified him as 22-year-old Robert “Bobby” Crimo.
Crimo left the scene of the attack aboard a Honda Fiat vehicle. The attacker “was taken into custody without incident” after he was seen driving on a freeway outside Chicago, police told the Chicago Sun-Times.
The deputy commissioner and spokesman for the local police, Christopher Covelli, He said for his part that the suspect apparently shot at parade attendees from the roof of a building with a rifle that had already been found. Covelli added that police believe he acted alone.
The Mayor of Highland Park, Nancy Rottering, He said that six people died and that 24 were taken to hospitals, although he did not confirm that all had gunshot wounds.
For her part, the mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, issued a statement calling the incident “devastating.”
Shortly thereafter, the governor of Illinois, the Democrat JB Pritzker, said in a statement: “There are no words for the kind of monster that stalks and shoots into a crowd of families with children celebrating a holiday with their community.”
And Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey tweeted calling for a special legislative session on crime.
“We need to call a special session to address crime on our streets. We need to enforce law and order and prosecute criminals,” Bailey said.
“We need more police on our streets to keep our families safe. Public safety must be a top priority,” he added, without mentioning gun control.
a horror parade
the traditional parade it started mid-morning but stopped suddenly 10 minutes later when gunshots rang out.
Fourth of July celebrations were also suspended in several towns in the area.
A witness identified as Michael, interviewed by the WGN channel, said he saw a single shooter armed with a rifle “crouching down and advancing in a methodical, almost military manner.”
The shots sowed panic in the streets of this town on the shores of Lake Michigan, where hundreds of people had gathered in the morning for the July 4 celebrations.
Carrie Mangoubi was at the parade with her three young children and her niece when the shooting started. First, she saw the marching band pull out of the way and run down the street, followed shortly after by fire trucks and police cars speeding back down the street.
“It never even crossed my mind that there would be a shooter,” Mangoubi said. “Then someone yelled, ‘There’s a shooter!’ so we just picked up our kids, grabbed them under the arm and started running to the car.”
The woman said her heart was still pounding in her chest several hours after the shooting. Mangoubi’s family moved from the city to the northern suburbs in recent years, thinking it would be a safer place to raise her family.
“We just explain (to their kids), ‘There’s a bad guy with a gun and we have to run to keep them safe,'” Mangoubi said. “How do you explain this to little kids?” Are Chicago’s gun laws the strictest in the United States? Not anymore.
Jack Steward, another citizen, barricaded himself for two hours at the New Balance shoe store where he works, about 100 feet (30 meters) from where he estimates the shooting occurred. He was stocking shelves in the back when he heard at least 20 gunshots. “This is one of the (safest) communities,” the 27-year-old said. “It’s crazy that you can witness something like this coming to work.”
Video from the scene showed chaos unfolding in the peaceful suburb of North Shore. Parents were sitting on the sidewalk along the parade route enjoying the marching band when the musicians suddenly started running for their lives. Families ran from the parade route, leaving behind hundreds of empty lawn chairs, strollers, drinks and balloons.
Highland Park was the site of a large rally in support of gun control on June 11 . The March for Our Lives rally was one of hundreds held across the country to pressure lawmakers to take bipartisan action on the matter.
President Joe Biden He signed last month the most far-reaching gun violence bill passed by Congress in decades, a compromise that showed both progress on a long-intractable issue and the deep-seated partisan divide that persists.
The shooting comes with gun violence fresh on the minds of many Americans, following a May 24 massacre of 19 schoolchildren and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Earlier, on May 14, a white supremacist shot and killed 10 Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
And it comes less than ten days after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of an expansion of gun ownership rights in the United States despite a wave of mass shootings.
Source: Ambito
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