highland parkUnited States: Police on Monday arrested a suspect after six people were killed in a mass shooting at an American Independence Day parade in a wealthy suburb of Chicago, putting darkness on the nation’s most patriotic holiday.
22-year-old Robert Cremo was identified as a “person of interest” and became the target of a massive search in the city of Highland Park, Illinois, where a rooftop gunman with a high-powered rifle kicked off a July 4 parade celebration. Focused on family. In a scene of death and trauma.
Firing into the holiday crowd, the shooter triggered scenes of total chaos as panicked spectators ran for their lives, littering the parade route with chairs, abandoned balloons and personal belongings.
Emergency officials said about two dozen people were treated, some of whom were in critical condition, including children who were injured by the bullets.
Highland Park Police Chief Lou Jogman told reporters that after a brief car chase, Cremo was taken into custody “without incident”.
Earlier, police had warned that he was armed and “very dangerous”. Chicago musician of the same age and stage moniker with the same name goes online as “Awake the Rapper”.
According to the Gun Violence Archive website, the shooting is part of a wave of gun violence in the United States, where about 40,000 deaths a year are caused by firearms.
And it sparked America’s Independence Day, with similar parades being held in towns and cities across the country and people—many dressed as the American flag—holding barbecues, attending sporting events and lighting fireworks. gather to perform.
“We were getting ready to hit the road and then suddenly waves of these people started running after us, as if running towards us. And just before that happened, we heard pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, and I thought it was fireworks,” Emily Prazak, who marched in the parade, told AFP.
Don Johnson, who attended the parade, said he initially thought the bullets were a car backfiring.
“And finally, I heard screams from a block down and people were running and taking their kids and everything, and we ran into the gas station, and we were there for three hours,” he told AFP.
“I’ve seen scenes like this over and over again on TV and in different communities, and I didn’t think it was ever going to happen here,” he said.
Police officials said the shooting began at 10:14 a.m., when the parade was almost three-quarters over.
“It looks like the audience was targeted … so, very random, very intentional and very sad,” said Lake County Major Crime Task Force spokesman Christopher Coveli.
Five of the six people killed, all adults, died on the spot. The sixth was taken to the hospital but he died there.
Dr. Brigham Temple at Highland Park Hospital, where most of the victims were taken, said 25 people between the ages of eight and 85 were gunned down.
He said “four or five” of them were children, and 16 people were later discharged.
Police said the shooter had used a “high-powered rifle” and that “gun evidence” was located on the roof of a nearby business.
“All indications that he was intelligent were very difficult to see,” Covelli said.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said a Mexican was among those killed.
“We stand with the Chicago community in their pain and sorrow over this tragedy,” he tweeted.
President Joe Biden voiced his shock and vowed to fight an “epidemic of gun violence” in the country.
“I’m not going to give up,” he said.
Last week, Biden signed the first significant federal bill on gun safety in decades, just days after the Supreme Court ruled that Americans have a fundamental right to carry a handgun in public.
The deeply divisive debate over gun control was restarted in May by two massacres in which 10 black supermarket shoppers at an elementary school in Texas were shot in New York and 21 people, mostly young children, were killed.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 309 mass shootings in the US so far in 2022 – including at least three others on July 4, though without any fatalities.
“It is devastating that America’s celebration has been sabotaged by our typical American plague,” Illinois Governor JB Pritzker told reporters on Monday.
“A day dedicated to freedom has denied the freedom we uphold as a nation – the freedom of our fellow citizens to live without the daily fear of gun violence.”