Highland Park mass shooting: 6 Killed, 24 wounded & suspect apprehended
The parade was suddenly halted when shots were fired about 10 minutes after it began, sending hundreds of people running for safety.
Police reported that they had apprehended a suspect in the shooting on Monday that left six people dead and more than 36 injured when a man carrying a powerful weapon fired from a rooftop during a Fourth of July parade in the Highland Park neighborhood of Chicago.
Robert E. Crimo III, 22, a local, according to police, was apprehended.
Police can be seen surrounding a car and then Crimo exiting the vehicle with his hands high, according to a video from the Chicago affiliate of ABC News. Before being taken into custody by authorities, Crimo lies motionless on the ground. According to Highland Park Police, charges will be brought.
Officials told a news conference that six people were killed and 24 were taken to hospital and a rifle was recovered from the scene.
“Law enforcement agencies are searching for the suspect; evidence of a firearm has been recovered,” the city of Highland Park reported on its website. “Numerous law enforcement officers are responding and have secured a perimeter around downtown Highland Park.”
The shooting comes with gun violence fresh on the minds of many Americans, after a massacre on May 24 that killed 19 school children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and the May 14 attack that killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
Witness Amarani Garcia, who was at the parade with her young daughter, told the media that she heard gunfire nearby, then paused for what she suspected was reloading, and then more shots were fired again. There were “people screaming and running. It was just really traumatizing,” Garcia said. “I was terrified. I hid with my daughter actually in a little store. It just makes me feel like we’re not safe anymore.”
According to witnesses, the shooter fired into the gathering from the top of a store. A Chicago Sun-Times columnist uploaded a photo of a puddle of blood at the base of a bench, and social media videos showed a marching band in the procession abruptly breaking formation and fleeing.
Bail was denied Wednesday for Robert Crimo III, who faces seven counts of first-degree murder.