Comment
HIGHLAND PARK, ILL. — Randy Winters couldn’t get 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, snagging a spot near the commuter lines that crisscrossed the city.
As he watched the Highland Park High School band play a patriotic tune, Winters, 56, told a friend, “That’s the thing. America isn’t so bad after all.”
“And then I heard boom-boom-boom-boom,” Winters said. “People were just yelling ‘Shooter!’ “
Nearby, Ashlee Jaffe, 39, sat on a park bench with her son. They had just finished their breakfast at Walker Bros. Original Pancake House when the shooting started.
Before he could piece together what was happening, a bullet hit Jaffe’s left arm. She pulled her 5-year-old under the counter and wrapped her body around him as he screamed..
Multiple people were killed and injured in a shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, IL. on the 4th of July. (Video: The Washington Post)
Around her, hundreds of marchers made the same frantic calculations, desperately seeking cover as bullets rained down from the sky. Some ran to open cafes and restaurants. Others hid behind ceramic pots or sprinted down the street. Two days after the shooting, many residents of this town were replaying the scene in their minds, trying to make sense of the tragedy.
“We didn’t know where [the shooter] spotted,” 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 he was on the roof. We didn’t know where he was. We only heard the shots, which came and went.”
Kagan fled to Smart Jewelers, the store he owns, where he holed up in his place with 16 people — including 11 he didn’t know. They spent the next two hours there before the police escorted them to their vehicles.
From two stories up, the gunman reloaded his Smith & Wesson M&P15 semiautomatic rifle, again and 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 hydrant on the roof of a business and fired a rifle into the heart of this suburban Chicago shopping district near the start of the parade route, authorities said.
A few minutes after the kids pedaled on bicycles decorated with streamers and American flags, with their pet dogs, the gunman opened fire.
In the midst of the Highland Park massacre, 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 trucks. On Monday, she and her daughter had just watched the band go by when they heard a bang. At first, Haas thought it was gunfire from Civil War reenactors — a staple of the parade.
But the shots grew faster.
That’s when my sister screamed, “Oh my God, it’s real. Get up and leave!’ Haas, 48, said.
“I looked up and there was a crowd of people flying towards us,” he said. “My sister grabbed her 3-year-old and her husband grabbed their 6-year-old. My daughter got up and ran.”
Haas’ 9-year-old nephew froze in the street, motionless. “I said, ‘Jack, I need you to run with me,’” Haas said. “I was probably hurting him, but I grabbed him around the waist and carried him.”
Haas’ 6-year-old niece and brother-in-law lost their shoes on the street from running so fast.
Cassie Goldstein told NBC News on Tuesday that she was at the parade with her mother, Katherine Goldstein, when they heard what they thought were firecrackers. “And then I looked up and I saw the shooter shooting 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 loved her, but I couldn’t stop because she was still shooting everyone around me.”
When Emily Lieberman, a pediatrician, heard the gunshots, she held her 5-year-old in her arms. her husband grabbed their 8-year-old. After separating from her husband in a hurry, Lieberman and her 5-year-old found their way to an open winery, went into a one-person bathroom, locked the door and turned off the light.
After a few minutes, others who left the scene began banging on the door, begging Lieberman to open it. He did, and 16 people crammed in, frantically texting loved ones. Two hours later, her husband and brother-in-law drove through 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 hideout at the Country Kitchen, four blocks from the set. When he came out an hour and a half later, he saw a man walking away from the scene covered in blood. “I asked him if he was okay, and he said, ‘It’s not my blood, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay.’ “
She made her way 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 dropped his rifle and managed to escape, mingling with terrified crowds running from the scene. He wore women’s clothing and makeup to cover his facial tattoos, according to Christopher Covelli, spokesman for the Lake County Major Crime Task Force.
Immediately after the shooting ended, Lauren Silva, Tom Brooks and Morgan Brooks emerged from the underground parking lot where they had been hiding.
They found a gruesome sight: corpses on the ground, chairs, teddy bears and Barbie dolls abandoned in the dumpster. Shaken, they were about to return to the garage when Morgan Brooks looked down at one victim and saw a small child pinned underneath him, he said. He and his father pulled the boy, Aiden McCarthy, from under the man they later identified as Kevin McCarthy.
Authorities later confirmed that Kevin McCarthy and Aiden’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 perform a tourniquet on Kevin McCarthy, who was bleeding from his inner thigh, he said. Back underground, Silva tried to comfort Aiden by telling him about her 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 gunfire. The police eventually reunited Aidan with his grandparents.
A few miles away, Jaffe, a pediatric physiatrist in Philadelphia, sat in the emergency room at NorthShore Highland Park Hospital with her arm wrapped in gauze. He heard staff repeating the words “Code Blue” as emergency vehicles brought the victims off. About 30 people were injured in the shooting, along with the seven dead.
Less critical patients began to sit 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 legs were peppered with shards of broken glass as they shattered the shop windows next to them.
Jaffe caught a ride to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, where she received stitches.
“I guess if you have to get shot in a mass casualty event, I’m so lucky to have it,” Jaffe said.
Elsewhere in the city, families were told to stay indoors as police searched for the gunman. Drivers trying to rescue loved ones from hiding places near the parade route were turned away by police. Those who ventured into hiding in the hours after the shooting ran down sidewalks and through garages to their homes or cars, unsure if the terror was over, they said.
Christopher Covelli, spokesman for the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force, said the suspect in Highland Park, Ill., considered targeting Madison, Wis. (Video: AP)
As Highland Park residents sheltered in place, Crimo borrowed his mother’s car and began driving, police said.
Officials say the suspect traveled to Madison, Washington, where he “seriously considered” using a KelTec rifle and about 60 rounds of ammunition in his car to open fire, according to Covelli.
Covelli said it was unclear why Crimo didn’t follow through, but said there were indications he didn’t think he had done enough planning. The suspect continued driving, eventually abandoning his phone in nearby Middleton, Wis., Covelli said.
Eventually, authorities say, Crimo returned to the North Chicago area where Ryan Lerman, 19, was delivering pizzas. He was nervous about starting his shift since the shooter was still on the loose, he said. Some of Lerman’s co-workers had called out, too scared to come to work.
As he drove through the northwest suburbs, Lerman noticed a 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 was, he said, “just terrified.” What if filming resumes?
Police arrested a “person of interest” hours after the shooting at the Highland Park, Ill., Fourth of July parade. (Video: The Washington Post)
Before he could call out what he saw, a swarm of patrol cars pulled up, lights flashing. Lerman backed up, then pulled out his phone and began recording as the officers jumped out of their cars. They stood back, guns drawn, and gave orders to Crimo over a loudspeaker, the video shows.
“Just, immediately…
