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HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — Randy Winters couldn’t convince his wife to come to this year’s Fourth of July parade — she was too upset about the Supreme Court’s abortion decision to “celebrate America,” she told him. But he went anyway, finding a spot near the railroad tracks that cut through the town.
As he watched the Highland Park High School marching band play a patriotic tune, Winters, 56, told a friend, “This is what it’s all about. America is not so bad after all.”
“And then I heard boom-boom-boom-boom,” Winters said. “People were just yelling ‘Shooter!'”
Nearby, Ashley Jaffe, 39, sat on a park bench with her son. They had just finished breakfast at Walker Bros. Original Pancake House when the shooting started.
Before he could understand what was happening, a bullet hit Jaffe’s left arm. She pulled her 5-year-old under the bench and wrapped her body around him as he screamed.
Multiple people were killed and injured in a shooting at the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois on July 4. (Video: The Washington Post)
Around her, hundreds of parade-goers made the same frantic calculations, desperately seeking shelter as bullets rained down from the sky. Some ran to open cafes and restaurants. Others hid behind ceramic pots or ran down the street. Two days after the shooting, many residents of that city replayed the scene in their minds, trying to make sense of the tragedy.
“We didn’t know where [the shooter] it was contained,” said Joel Kagan, who was at the parade with his family. “We didn’t know he wasn’t on the ground. We didn’t know it was on the roof. We didn’t know where he was. We just heard the shots that kept coming and coming and coming.”
Kagan fled to Smart Jewelers, the store he owns, where he sheltered in a place with 16 people — including 11 he didn’t know. They spent the next few hours there before police escorted them to their cars.
From two stories up, the gunman reloaded his Smith & Wesson M&P15 semiautomatic rifle once and then again, officials later said, firing 90 rounds in about a minute.
The suspect, Robert E. Crimo III, had been planning the massacre for weeks, police said. On the day of the shooting, he climbed a fire escape onto the roof of a business and pointed a rifle into the heart of the commercial district of this Chicago suburb, near the start of the parade route, according to authorities.
Minutes after the kids turned the pedals on bicycles decorated with ribbons and American flags pulled by pet dogs, the gunman opened fire.
Amidst the carnage in Highland Park, seven dead and a small child left alone
Marissa Haas attends the parade every year — even returning from a vacation home in Wisconsin to make sure she sees the marching band, costumed dogs and fire engines. On Monday, she and her daughter had just watched the marching band when they heard pops. At first, Haas thought they were shots fired by Civil War reenactors — a staple of the parade.
But the shots became faster.
“Then my sister screamed, ‘Oh my God, it’s real. Get up and go!'” Haas, 48, said.
“I looked up and masses of people were flying towards us,” she said. “My sister grabbed her 3-year-old and her husband grabbed their 6-year-old. My daughter got up and ran away.”
Haas’ 9-year-old nephew froze in the street, not moving. “I said, ‘Jack, I need you to run with me,'” Haas said. “I was probably hurting him, but I just grabbed him around the waist and it was like I was carrying him.”
Haas’ 6-year-old niece and her son-in-law lost their shoes in the street from running so fast.
Cassie Goldstein told NBC News on Tuesday that she was at the parade with her mother, Catherine Goldstein, when they heard what they thought were firecrackers. “And then I looked up and I saw the shooter shooting at the kids,” the 22-year-old told host Lester Holt. “And I told her it was a shooter and she needed to run.”
Shortly after they started running, Katherine Goldstein was shot in the chest and hit the pavement, her daughter said. “I knew she was dead,” Cassie Goldstein told NBC. “I just told her I love her but I couldn’t stop because he was still shooting at everyone next to me.”
When Emily Lieberman, a pediatrician, heard the bullets, she scooped up her 5-year-old in her arms; her husband grabbed their 8-year-old child. After separating from her husband in a hurry, Lieberman and her 5-year-old found their way to an outdoor winery, entered a single-person bathroom, locked the door and turned off the light.
After a few minutes, others fleeing the scene began banging on the door, begging Lieberman to open it. She did, and 16 people crowded inside, frantically texting loved ones. Two hours later, her husband and brother-in-law drove past a barricade in a car to pick her up.
“The fact that my children will have this memory for the rest of their lives is the most devastating thing,” Lieberman said.
Karen Abrams found a hiding place at Country Kitchen, four blocks from the shooting. When she came out an hour and a half later, she saw a man walking away from the stage covered in blood. “I asked him if he was okay and he said, ‘The blood isn’t mine, but I don’t know if I’m ever going to be okay.'”
She headed to the intersection to see if she could find family and friends, but was stopped by a man. “You don’t want to see this,” he told her.
According to police, Crimo abandoned his rifle and managed to escape, joining terrified crowds fleeing the crime scene. He wore women’s clothing and makeup to cover up his facial tattoos, according to Christopher Covelli, a spokesman for the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force.
Soon after the shooting ended, Lauren Silva, Tom Brooks and Morgan Brooks crawled out of the underground garage where they were hiding.
They emerged to a horrifying sight: bodies on the ground, chairs, teddy bears and Barbie dolls abandoned in the stampede. Shaken, they were about to go back into the garage when Morgan Brooks looked at a victim and saw a small child pinned under him, he said. He and his father pulled the boy, Aidan McCarthy, from under the man, later identified as Kevin McCarthy.
Authorities later confirmed that Kevin McCarthy and Aidan’s mother, Irina McCarthy, were killed in the shooting.
Tom Brooks gave Aiden to Silva, he said. Meanwhile, Morgan Brooks tore off his Grateful Dead T-shirt to try to make a tourniquet for Kevin McCarthy, who was bleeding profusely from the inside of his thigh, he said. Back underground, Silva tried to comfort Aiden by telling him about his own children.
Soon after, Silva handed the boy over to Greg and Dana Ring, who had run to their car in the garage after narrowly escaping the shooting. Eventually, the police reunited Aidan with his grandparents.
A few miles away, Jaffe, a pediatric physiatrist in Philadelphia, sat in the emergency room waiting room at NorthShore Highland Park Hospital, his arm wrapped in gauze. She heard officers repeat the words “Code Blue” as emergency vehicles dropped off the victims. About 30 people were injured in the shooting, along with seven killed.
Less critical patients began to take seats around her: a war veteran who said he had never been shot in combat but had taken a bullet in the leg on parade; a couple whose feet were littered with shards of broken glass as shop windows shattered beside them.
Jaffe caught a ride to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, where she received stitches.
“I guess if you have to get a gunshot wound in a mass casualty event, I’m so happy to have it,” Jaffe said.
In other parts of the city, families were urged to stay indoors while police searched for the shooter. Drivers seeking to rescue loved ones from shelters near the parade route were turned away by officials. Those who ventured out of hiding in the hours after the shooting ran along sidewalks and through garages to their homes or cars, unsure if the terror was over, they said.
Christopher Covelli, a spokesman for the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force, said the suspect in Highland Park, Illinois, planned to head to Madison, Wisconsin (Video: AP)
While Highland Park residents were sheltering in place, Crimo borrowed his mother’s car and began driving, police said.
Officials say the suspect traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, where he “seriously considered” using a KelTec rifle and the approximately 60 rounds of ammunition that were in his car to carry out another shooting, according to Covelli.
Covelli said it’s unclear why Crimo didn’t follow through, but said there were signs he didn’t think he did enough planning. The suspect continued driving, eventually abandoning his phone in nearby Middleton, Wis., Covelli said.
Eventually, according to authorities, Crimo returned to the North Chicago area where Ryan Lerman, 19, was delivering pizzas. He was nervous as he started his shift because the shooter was still on the loose, he said. Some of Lerman’s co-workers had even called, too scared to come to work.
As he drove through the northwest suburbs, Lerman kept an eye out for the silver Honda Fit the car authorities said the gunman was driving. Then, while sitting in his Hyundai at an intersection in Lake Forest, he saw one. He said he was “just horrified”. What if the shooting starts again?
Police arrest ‘person of interest’ hours after shooting at Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois (Video: The Washington Post)
Before he could shout out what he saw, a swarm of patrol cars pulled up with lights flashing. Lerman backed up, then pulled out his phone and began recording as the officers jumped out of their cars. They retreated with guns drawn and gave Crimo orders over a loudspeaker, the footage shows.
“He just, like instantly…
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