HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — At first it sounded like fireworks for parents who had brought excited children to their town’s adorable Fourth of July parade. Or maybe a military salute to the flag.
But seconds later, as marching band members and politicians strolled down the street, horrified onlookers realized the noise from a nearby rooftop was a high-powered rifle spraying bullets into the crowd, killing six people and wounding dozens.
The attack in Highland Park, a normally safe coastal suburb north of Chicago, prompted police to launch a massive manhunt that forced residents to shelter in place for most of the day and prompted neighboring towns to cancel their holiday events. About eight hours later, police said they had arrested a 22-year-old man they described as a person of interest.
Even in a country struck by the persistence of mass violence — in grocery stores and elementary schools and on city street corners — the carnage in Illinois was shocking. According to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group, Monday’s shooting was the 15th this year in which at least four people have been fatally shot in the United States.
For reasons that remained unclear to police Monday night, officials said a young man climbed onto a roof with a rifle and began shooting at a sea of families in lawn chairs celebrating Independence Day.
“My wife looks up and yells, ‘Get up, run.’ Get up, run,” said Shawn Cotro, 47, a Massachusetts resident who was visiting family in Illinois and who said he initially thought there were firecrackers nearby.
Mr. Cotreau estimated that his family were sitting in chairs about 20 feet from the gunman, who was on the roof of a store shooting.
“I can’t even get the image of that guy out of my head,” he said, describing a man with a large gun wearing a uniform and hat off. “He was just opening fire. And I saw the bullets hit the tree that was literally in front of us.
Police officers already assigned to the parade route arrived and rushed to help the injured, authorities said. The victims ranged in age from 8 to 85, said doctors who admitted the injured to local hospitals.
The shooting stopped around the time officers arrived, police said, and the gunman was able to get away. As of late afternoon, SWAT teams were still searching the area and authorities were asking residents and businesses to submit photos or videos that might provide clues. Authorities warned that he was believed to be armed and told the public to stay away from him.
“Could this happen again?” Deputy Christopher Covelli of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office asked Monday afternoon as the search for a gunman continued and other Chicago suburbs rushed to cancel parades and fireworks. “We don’t know what his intentions are at this point.
Robert E. Crimo III was taken into custody in nearby Lake Forest after a short chase, police said.
Survivors described a joyous family event with high school football players and a marching band that suddenly turned into a fight for life. Dr. David Baum, an obstetrician who had come to the parade to watch his 2-year-old grandson push a balloon mower along with dozens of other children, said he rushed to help after what sounded like an audible boom and people , who screamed, ” ‘Bodies down, bodies down!’
Dr. David Baum, an obstetrician, rushed to help the victims. Credit… Mary Mathis for The New York Times
Diego Rosas, who worked at a grocery store near the parade route, heard about 30 gunshots then saw people running toward the store. He let them in.
Alexander Sandoval, who had arrived early with his family long before the parade began to stake out a prime viewing spot, said he didn’t immediately realize what was happening.
”When it started happening, I thought the Navy was saluting the flag,” said Mr. Sandoval, a building contractor and lifelong Highland Park resident. “Then I grabbed my child and we ran and tried to break a shop window to get out of it.”
Mr. Sandoval said he also tried to break down a closed business, but then had to keep running. “I was banging on the door but I couldn’t break it,” he said. “I think the shooter stopped and reloaded and then I ran around the corner and put my son and my little brother in the dumpster.”
Mr. Sandoval said he saw a police officer carrying an injured boy about his own child’s age. “It’s just emotional,” he said.
The shooting sparked an outpouring of sympathy from across the state and country and renewed calls among Democrats for tougher gun laws, just a week after President Biden signed the most significant gun legislation to unseat Congress in decades. President Biden said he was “shocked by the senseless gun violence.” Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat, vowed to “end this plague.”
“There are no words for the kind of monster that stalks and shoots into a crowd of families with children celebrating a holiday with their community,” the governor said. “There are no words for the kind of evil that is robbing our neighbors of their hopes, their dreams, their future.”
Those victims include Nicolas Toledo, who recently returned to Highland Park from Mexico to spend more time with his family, according to his granddaughter, Xochil Toledo.
Ms. Toledo said her family went out at midnight to arrange chairs so 15 of them could be together for the Fourth of July. Three of that group would be shot.
Nicholas Toledo, center, was killed during the shooting in Highland Park on Monday.Credit…
“We brought him here so he could have a better life,” Ms. Toledo said of her grandfather. “His sons wanted to take care of him and be more in his life, and then this tragedy happened.”
After the shooting, 26 people were taken to Highland Park Hospital, 25 of them with gunshot wounds, said Dr. Brigham R. Temple, medical director of emergency preparedness at NorthShore University HealthSystem. At least 10 other patients were taken to nearby hospitals, he said. Their injuries ranged from mild to severe.
With the center still considered an active crime scene and residents encouraged to stay inside, many in Highland Park spoke of a mixture of shock, grief and anger.
“On a day where we came together to celebrate community and freedom, we instead mourn the loss, the tragic loss of life and fight the terror that was inflicted on us,” said Mayor Nancy Rothering.
“I think now every parent in this community and every other community is starting to look at risk in a completely different way,” Dr. Baum said, before referring to the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead. in elementary school dead . “Uvalde is several thousand miles away, but Uvalde happened in Highland Park in a different way.”
Monday’s attack came less than eight months after the driver of an SUV plowed through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wis., about 80 miles northwest of Highland Park, killing six people and injuring dozens more.
In Illinois, Superintendent Covelli said officers recovered a rifle and that hundreds of local, state and federal law enforcement officers were searching for the shooter.
The Lake County medical examiner said at least five of the six dead were adults. Authorities did not immediately release their names.
Highland Park Police Sergeant Christopher Covelli at a news conference after the shooting. Credit… Max Hermann/Reuters
News of the shooting shook the Chicago area as authorities weighed whether to continue with their own celebrations amid the grief and search.
Several cities canceled parades and fireworks and even closed beaches. In Highland Park and neighboring Deerfield, residents were advised to stay indoors.
Michelle Bernstein, a Deerfield resident, said her two teenage daughters were at friends’ houses at the time of the shooting. She told them to stay there until the shooter was taken into custody. One of her daughters was supposed to work as a lifeguard at a local pool, she said, but the pool was closed for the day.
“I hope they catch the person so my kids can come home,” Ms. Bernstein said in the hours before the person of interest was taken into custody. “I don’t want to go out right now.”
And as the afternoon dragged on with no arrests, traces of sudden terror remained scattered along the parade route.
Abandoned prams and empty lounge chairs lined the sidewalk, some with half-drinked drinks in their glasses. A child’s bicycle is thrown by the curb. And a cheerful-looking balloon, left alone in the grass, said “God Bless America.”
Maggie Astor, Adam Goldman, Michael Levenson, Noam Scheiber and Alan Juhasz contributed reporting.
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