A 22-year-old person of interest in the shooting that occurred on an Independence Day parade in suburban Chicago on Monday was taken into police custody Monday evening after an hours-long manhunt.
The gunman identified by the police as Robert E. Crimo III opened fire from a rooftop of a commercial building in Highland Park, located about 25 miles north of Chicago, and killed at least six people, wounded at least 30, and sent hundreds of parents with strollers, marchers, and children on bicycles fleeing in terror when they realized they heard gunshots, not fireworks.
According to Lake County Coroner Jennifer Banek, the five people killed at the parade were adults, one of which was a Mexican national. No info on the sixth victim who was taken to a hospital and died there has been issued.
Police later recovered a high-powered rifle on the scene and the shooter, which has been considered armed and dangerous, was apprehended without incident after a five-mile car chase north of where the shooting occurred but have yet to press any charges against the detained man.
At a news conference following the shooting, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker stressed that it’s devastating that a celebration of America was ripped apart by the uniquely American plague, noting that mass shootings have become a weekly American tradition.
Stressing how shocked he and first lady Jill were by the senseless gun violence, President Biden promised not to give up fighting the epidemic of gun violence. He recently signed the widest-ranging gun violence bill passed by Congress in decades.
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