A shooting that killed five people at an Independence Day parade in a Chicago suburb marred celebrations across the US on Monday and further rocked a country already in turmoil over high court rulings on abortion and guns and hearings on sedition on January 6.
Police said 19 people were also hospitalized after the shooting in Highland Park.
The parade started around 10am but was abruptly halted 10 minutes later after gunshots were fired. Hundreds of parade attendees – some visibly bloodied – fled the parade route, leaving behind chairs, baby carriages and blankets.
News of yet another mass shooting came as the nation struggled to find a reason to celebrate its independence and the bonds that still hold it together. It was supposed to be a day to cut work, put on parades, devour hot dogs and burgers at backyard barbecues, and gather under a canopy of stars and exploding fireworks.
“The Fourth of July is a sacred day in our country – it’s a time to celebrate the goodness of our nation, the only nation on Earth founded on an idea: that all men are created equal,” President Joe Biden tweeted earlier Monday. “Make no mistake, our best days are yet to come.”
But the Highland Park shooting has left a chaotic, conflicted scene since July 4.
Video footage taken by a Chicago Sun-Times reporter after the shots were fired showed a band on a float continuing to play as people ran past them screaming. Parade-goer Gina Troianni told The Associated Press that she rode her 5-year-old son’s bicycle, decorated with red and blue ribbons, through a neighborhood to get out of the parade route.
At first, she thought the loud noises were fireworks — until she heard people yelling for a shooter.
These are uncertain times: An economic recession looms, and the Highland Park shooting will weigh on a national psyche already raw from mass shootings like those seen recently at an elementary school in Texas and a supermarket in New York.
Sharp social and political divisions have also been laid bare by recent Supreme Court decisions striking down the constitutional right to abortion and striking down a New York law restricting who can carry guns in public.
“Independence Day doesn’t feel like a holiday when our basic rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are on the line,” New York Attorney General Tish James, a Democrat, tweeted. “Today I encourage you to imagine what this nation could be if and when we live up to our values.”
However, many had reason to gather and celebrate as coronavirus precautions were eased for the first time in three years.
Baltimore, for example, is resuming its Independence Day celebrations after a two-year hiatus, to the delight of residents like Kirsten Monroe.
“I’m happy to see downtown coming back together the way it should be,” she told WBAL-TV.
Colorful displays, large and small, were to light up the night sky in cities from New York to Seattle, to Chicago and Dallas. Others, however, especially in drought- and wildfire-stricken regions of the West, will give them up.
Phoenix is also out of fireworks again — not because of the pandemic or fire fears, but because of supply chain issues.
In emotional ceremonies across the country, some will take the oath of citizenship that qualifies them to vote in the upcoming midterm elections.
During a ceremony for naturalized citizens held at Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home in Virginia, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told 52 people, initially from 42 different countries, that they are essential to building a strong workforce.
“Immigrants strengthen our workforce and, in the process, help drive the resilience and vitality of our economy,” Yellen said in remarks prepared for Monday’s event.
For many, July 4 was also a chance to put aside political differences and celebrate unity, reflecting the revolution that launched the longest-lived democracy in history.
“There’s always something that divides us or unites us,” says Eli Merritt, a Vanderbilt University political historian whose forthcoming book traces the fraught 1776 founding of the United States.
But he sees the Jan. 6 hearings on last year’s Capitol storming as a reason for hope, an opportunity to rally behind democratic institutions. While not all Americans or their elected representatives agree with the commission’s work, Merritt is encouraged that it is at least somewhat bipartisan with some Republicans on board.
“Moral courage as a place for Americans to put hope, the willingness to stand up for what is right and true despite the negative consequences to oneself,” he said. “This is an essential solder of constitutional democracy.”
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Associated Press reporter Fatima Hussain contributed reporting from Washington.
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