Six people were killed and possibly more than two dozen were injured when a gunman began firing from a rooftop 10 minutes after the July 4 Highland Park parade began Monday morning, authorities said.
Shortly after noon, Highland Park police said it was still an “active incident” and urged people to stay away. Authorities continued to search for the shooter and the FBI requested that anyone with a video of the shooting or possible information about the shooter call their toll-free number at (800) CALL-FBI.
A Chicago Sun-Times reporter saw blankets covering three bloodied bodies and five other injured and bleeding people near the parade review stand.
The NorthShore University health system said 26 people were taken to Highland Park Hospital and five to Evanston Hospital, the “vast majority” treated for gunshot wounds, although some “have suffered injuries as a result of the chaos that ensued in the parade “.
Several witnesses said they heard several shots fired. One witness said he counted more than 20 shots.
Miles Zaremski, a Highland Park resident, told the Sun-Times, “I heard 20 to 25 shots, which happened quickly. So it couldn’t have been just a gun or a shotgun.”
Zaremski said he saw “people in the area who were shot,” including “a woman covered in blood.” . . She didn’t survive. “
Police were telling people, “Scatter everyone, please. It’s not safe to be here.”
As they fled the parade route on Central Street in downtown Highland Park, panicked parade attendees left chairs, strollers and blankets as they searched for cover, not knowing what happened. Even as people ran, a band of klezmer, seemingly unaware of the shots, continued to sound.
An attendee at the July 4 parade in Highland Park runs to take refuge after being shot.
Highland Park Police and several other jurisdictions, including Illinois State Police, some armed with rifles, patrolled the area, looking for who fired the shots.
“It looks like he was shooting from a rooftop,” said Chris Covelli, of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Highland Park Cmdr Police. Christ O’Neill said a rifle used by the gunman has been recovered and the suspect appeared to be between 18 and 20 years old, white and wearing a blue T-shirt.
Adrienne Drell, a former Sun-Times reporter, said she was sitting on the sidewalk of Central Avenue watching the parade when she saw members of the Highland Park High School band start running.
“Go to Sunset,” Drell said as he heard the students scream, directing people to nearby Sunset Foods.
A man grabbed her from the sidewalk and urged her out, Drell said.
“There’s panic all over the city,” he said. “Everyone is stunned beyond belief.”
He ran to a nearby parking lot with other people who had been watching the parade.
“It was a quiet, peaceful and lovely morning, people were enjoying the parade,” Drell said. “In a few seconds, that tranquility is suddenly broken, it’s scary. You can’t go anywhere, you can’t find peace. I think we’re sinking.”
Terrified parade attendees fled the July 4 parade from Highland Park after shots were fired, leaving their belongings behind as they sought safety.
Eric Trotter, 37, who lives blocks of the shooting, echoed that sentiment.
“I was shocked,” Trotter said. “How could this happen in a peaceful community like Highland Park.”
As police cars sped past Central Avenue, sirens sounding, 39-year-old Alexander Sandoval sat on a bench and cried. He had gotten up before 7am to put grass chairs and a blanket in front of the main stage of the parade. He lives a short distance from there, so he went home for breakfast with his son, his partner and his stepdaughter before returning to the parade.
Hours later, he said he and his family ran after hearing the shots, fearing for his life.
“We saw the protesters and the Navy float pass by, and when I first heard the shots, I thought it was them waving the flag and firing at targets,” Sandoval said. “But then I saw people starting to run and the shots continued. We started running.”
He said that, in the midst of the chaos, he and his partner Amairani Garcia ran in different directions, he with his 5-year-old son Alex, she with her 6-year-old daughter Melani.
“I grabbed my son and tried to get into one of the local buildings, but I couldn’t,” Sandoval said. “The shooting stopped. I guess I was reloading. So I kept running and ran into an alley and put my son in a trash can so he could be safe.”
He then said he ran to look for the rest of his family and saw bodies in puddles of blood on the ground.
“I saw a little boy take away who was shot,” Sandoval said. “It was just terror.”
He found his partner and stepdaughter, safely, inside a nearby McDonald’s.
“That doesn’t happen here,” he said. “It shouldn’t happen anywhere.”
Don Johnson, 76, who lives about two blocks from the shooting scene, initially thought the shot was a car that had been fired again. He said he ran with several people to a nearby BP gas station and described the scene as “surreal.”
“It’s a terrible thing,” he said. “I never would have thought this would have happened in the middle of Highland Park.”
Johnson said his daughter lives in Chicago with her son and has urged them to move to Highland Park, recently telling her, “It’s safe.”
Now, he said, it’s clear that “it can happen anywhere.”
Governor JB Pritzker called on “all Illinois residents to pray for the families who have been devastated by the evil unleashed this morning in Highland Park, for those who have lost loved ones and for those who have been injured.
“There are no words for the kind of monster that is lurking and shooting at a crowd of families with children who are having a holiday with their community. There are no words for the kind of evil that robs our neighbors of their hopes, their dreams, their future.
“We must end, and we will end, this plague of armed violence.”
The news of the shooting in Highland Park caused other suburbs to cancel the July Fourth celebrations.
Police in several local municipalities, including Illinois State Police, are searching the center of Highland Park after the mass shooting at the July 4 parade on Monday. | Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere / Sun-Times
Police in several local municipalities, including Illinois State Police, are searching the center of Highland Park after the mass shooting at the July 4 parade on Monday. | Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere / Sun-Times
Police in several local municipalities, including Illinois State Police, are searching the center of Highland Park after the mass shooting at the July 4 parade on Monday. | Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere / Sun-Times
Police in several local municipalities, including Illinois State Police, are searching the center of Highland Park after the mass shooting at the July 4 parade on Monday. | Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere / Sun-Times
Downtown Highland Park after the mass shooting at the July 4 parade on Monday. | Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere / Sun-Times
Downtown Highland Park after the mass shooting at the July 4 parade on Monday. | Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere / Sun-Times
Collaborators: Zack Miller, Frank Main, Sophie Sherry, Mitch Armentrout
This is a developing story. Check for updates again.