Shock, confusion at Six Flags after two teenagers injured in shooting; “It was a big panic”

When Aisha Tahir went to buy her children’s funnel cake at the end of a long day at Six Flags Great America, she saw things strewn around the food shack kitchen. People were hiding under the windows.

They feared for their lives after a gunman shot two people in the parking lot of a Gurnee amusement park Sunday night.

“The way people were panicking, it made us feel like the shooter was close by. And when we saw the police come into the park, we thought the shooter was on the loose somewhere inside,” said the resident of Kenosha.

Gurnee police said the shooting was not random and appeared to be targeted. No arrests had been made Monday and police were still investigating, according to Gurnee police spokesman Shawn Gaylor.

But the gunfire sparked chaos, confusion and fear among hundreds of park visitors.

Many fled to the same parking lot where shots were fired. Others jumped fences and tried to break through locked exit doors to escape.

The bullets struck a 17-year-old Aurora boy in the upper thigh and a 19-year-old woman from Appleton, Wis., in the lower leg, police said. The two shooting victims were treated at Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville for non-life-threatening injuries and released Sunday night, police said. A third victim who suffered a shoulder injury refused further treatment.

After noticing visitors taking cover at the funnel cake stand, Tahir saw people running and heard screams about the shooter. His family ran to a bathroom, where an employee guided them to a hiding place before they were heard outside the park 20 minutes later.

He lied to his children while they were in hiding. The commotion was over the fireworks, he told them. But the kids heard people yelling about the shooter.

Tahir worries about them going back to school in two weeks. She knows no place is safe, she said. The 32-year-old mother had talked to her children earlier about what to do if a gunman attacked their school. They have to be ready wherever they go, he said.

“I feel helpless. I don’t know what to do to get lawmakers to understand that gun violence has to end,” she said.

Authorities said a white sedan pulled into the Six Flags parking lot around 7:50 p.m. and drove toward the front park entrance. Gurnee police said more than one person got out of the sedan “and started shooting at another person in the parking lot.” After firing multiple shots, “they got back into the white sedan and quickly left the area,” according to a statement from Gurnee police.

“This was not an active shooter incident inside the park,” police wrote.

Eddie Cárdenas was with his fiancee and three children when his mother-in-law called. He had left the park for the car to start preparing food.

“Stay inside the park. There’s a shooter out here. There’s a shooter out here. There’s bodies falling,” he yelled into the phone after watching the shooting unfold.

Surprised by the news, Cárdenas and his girlfriend began to plan. But then dozens of people started running, Cárdenas said.

“There’s a shooter! There’s a shooter! There’s a shooter!” he remembered hearing.

The couple grabbed their children — a 7-year-old boy, a 5-year-old boy and a 5-month-old girl — and started running. They took cover behind the Raging Bull’s steel roller coaster and took off again moments later.

Her stroller was moving too slowly, so Cárdenas threw it and put her 5-year-old son on her shoulder. His girlfriend also left a bag. Her 7-year-old son stepped forward and was almost lost in the confusion. Cárdenas saw the police with their guns drawn. In a video he shared with the Tribune, people were yelling and pulling the children.

Outside the park, Cárdenas regrouped with the nearly 30 family members he had joined for the trip to Great America. He saw frightened uncles waiting for their teenagers, who had separated earlier to go for a walk.

“We didn’t know,” said the 30-year-old from Joliet. “It was a big panic.”

Her 7-year-old son said he never wanted to go to Six Flags again.

Her 5-year-old son tossed his shiny plastic toy guns into a garbage bag Monday morning.

“These are not toys,” he told his parents, according to Cárdenas.

His wife ordered five-pound backpack shields for the kids, who will be heading back to school soon.

After the shooting, the family took a moment to pray in the car. One of Cárdenas’ sons thanked God that the family was not killed.

Cardenas began to cry.

“The world we live in, where our 5- and 7-year-olds have to worry about shootings, shootings and death, is scary. It’s a really scary world,” he said.

To protect Six Flags Great America, authorities use security cameras inside the park and in the parking lot, a Six Flags spokesman said. Uniformed and plainclothes patrols patrol the park, which has a Gurnee Police Department substation on site.

“Six Flags devotes our greatest amount of time, talent and resources to safety,” Six Flags spokeswoman Rachel Kendziora told the Tribune.

“Layers of preventative measures have been put in place both inside and outside the park to protect guests and team members. … We are incredibly grateful to our team members who responded in a professional manner to take care of our guests , and to the Gurnee Police Department for their continued presence and commitment to Six Flags Great America,” Kendziora said.

The Great America theme park is an 18-mile drive from Highland Park, where a mass shooter opened fire on a crowd gathered for a Fourth of July parade, killing seven and injuring dozens.

[ Highland Park shooting: Man accused of killing 7 people at July Fourth parade pleads not guilty ]

Tane Walker was on a float in the Highland Park parade when the shooting occurred. On Sunday, he had left Six Flags in the early afternoon, hours before people in Chicago’s northern suburbs fled again for fear of gun violence this summer.

Briefing in the afternoon

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Worries about what might happen if a gunman tried to attack the park crossed his mind earlier Sunday, the 16-year-old said. He feels unsafe to leave the house or go anywhere in public, he added.

Walker will soon return to class at the school where he and his family received trauma counseling after the Highland Park shooting.

“Nowhere is truly safe until a change is made,” he said.

Freelancer Cliff Ward contributed.

jsheridan@chicagotribune.com

kdouglas@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @jakesheridan_

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