met videoAt least six people have been killed in a shooting at an Independence Day parade in the US state of Illinois. According to authorities, about 30 more people (aged 8 to 85) were seriously injured. Police have arrested a suspected suspect after an hours-long manhunt.
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Foreign editors
5 jul. 2022
Latest update:
07:20
It concerns Robert E. Crimo III, a 22-year-old man who is described by the police as ‘armed and dangerous’. He was arrested just eight kilometers north of the shooting site. The national police were also involved in the manhunt. Police spokesman Christopher Covelli said the gunman fired from the roof of a business building, which he had climbed up a ladder. Officers previously found the heavy weapon with which he allegedly fired.
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The parade in Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago, was in honor of the American national holiday, July 4, which celebrates independence. The shooting started about ten minutes after the parade had left. Shots can be heard on videos shared on social media. A witness speaks of more than twenty shots ‘which followed each other in quick succession’. That is also what another witness, Jeff Leon, tells news channel CNN. He said the gunfire lasted less than a minute.
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blind panic
When the first shots were fired, parade participants and spectators scattered in blind panic, video footage shows. The vast majority of those injured have gunshot wounds, others were injured in the chaos that followed the shooting. The parade was immediately ended and festivities in the area were also called off.
In the empty streets, only abandoned prams, picnic blankets and half-empty chip bags remind us of the parade that had started so cheerfully.
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The background of the incident is not yet known. The governor of Illinois, the state where Highland Park is located, had “no words for this kind of evil that shows up at a public celebration of freedom, hides on a rooftop and shoots innocent people who party together.” “It is deeply saddened that our country’s celebrations are being ruined by a uniquely American disease,” Governor Jay Robert Pritzker said at a news conference. “We only celebrate July 4th once a year, but these mass shootings have become a weekly American tradition. Yes, weekly. I’m furious, because this could be done differently.”
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Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering quickly took to Twitter to report on the ‘incident’ in the center of the town and immediately said that all further festivities before the National Day would be cancelled. “The Fourth Fest has been cancelled. Please stay away,” Rotering said.
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massacres
The Independence Day shooting comes as many Americans remember other massacres in the United States, such as the May 24 massacre that killed 19 schoolchildren and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and the May 14 attack that ten people died in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
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The events rekindled the debate about gun ownership in the US. The divided parliament agreed with a small step to change certain rules.
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President Joe Biden said he was “shocked by the senseless violence of arms that has brought new grief to an American community on this day.” He pointed in a statement to “the first major gun reform bill in nearly 30 years” passed recently. He promised to continue fighting the ‘epidemic of gun violence’.
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Highland Park has about 30,000 inhabitants.
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Nancy Rotering
@NancyRotering
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Lake County Sheriff
@LakeCoILSheriff
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Rep. Brad Schneider
@RepSchneider
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