Highland Park shooting: What we know

On an idyllic summer morning, from a rooftop high above the Highland Park Independence Day parade, a gunman aimed down at the floats and lawn chairs and strollers and opened fire.

The high school marching band’s members sprinted for their lives, still carrying their flutes and saxophones. Bystanders scooped up young children and fled. In all, seven people were killed. Some two dozen others were injured, either by rifle fire or in the stampede away from the scene.

After an hourslong search, authorities arrested a person of interest: 21-year-old Robert “Bobby” Crimo III. North Chicago police spotted him and gave chase; he was ultimately arrested without incident in Lake Forest, according to the Highland Park police chief. Crimo was taken back to Highland Park as the investigation continued.

Police recovered a rifle from the crime scene, and federal authorities are performing a trace to try to determine its origin.

Here’s what we know about shooting.

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Here is what we know about the victims of the shooting who ranged in age from 8 to 85 years old.

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Prosecutors on Tuesday filed charges against the man suspected of firing upon crowds gathered for a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park on Monday morning, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 30.

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The man suspected of killing at least six people and injuring more than 30 others Monday morning during a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park planned the attack for several weeks before he climbed a fire escape ladder and fired on the crowd from the roof of a building, authorities said a news conference Tuesday.

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The shooting at Highland Park’s Fourth of July parade Monday put the North Shore town in chilling company with other communities across Chicago and the suburbs where neighbors, co-workers, students and residents have faced terror and tragedy when gunmen opened fire.

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Members of the Highland Park community came together to grieve Tuesday after seven people were killed and more than two dozen others injured in a mass shooting during the town’s Independence Day parade.

In the first of several vigils, about 60 people gathered in a gym at Trinity Grace Church in Highland Park. Several pastors from nearby Christ Church attended, said Jill Carter, executive director of creative arts and communications for Christ Church. Carter said they weren’t able to host a vigil in their church because it was still roped off by police as part of the shooting scene.

The suspect in the shooting, Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III, 21, attended Christ Church off and on for the past several years, Carter said.

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Having moved to Highland Park with my family as a 10-year-old, the city has been the place where I raised my children, and now get to watch grandchildren play baseball on the same diamonds where I played as a boy.

It is home and a very good one.

Fourth of July parades were often part of my experience as a child, as a parent, as a reporter and now as a grandparent. A few times, the parade was a three-generational experience with multiple grandparents. Thankfully, that was not the case Monday.

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In Tinley Park, there is a playground Rick Bruno visits with his grandchildren.

“I told them it was named for a friend of mine, a very nice man,” Bruno said.

Jogmen Playground in Centennial Park opened in the early 1990s as Tinley Park’s first playground for children with disabilities. It is named for Louis Jogmen, a former Tinley Park police officer seriously wounded July 12, 1977, when he was shot in the head at point-blank range while responding to an armed robbery of a convenience store. He miraculously survived.

Now, as police chief in Highland Park, Jogmen is trying to help his community come to grips with a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade that left seven dead and some 30 injured.

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In the past, Chicago-area parents may have been able to avoid difficult conversations with their young children about mass shootings in other areas of the country. But the Highland Park shooting has made that nearly impossible for many parents.

“If you’re living in northern Illinois, everyone is going to be talking about this, and if a child is older than a toddler, they’re going to have some level of exposure to it,” said Gene Liebler, executive director of behavioral health and community at La Rabida Children’s Hospital in Chicago.

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The first popping noises sounded like firecrackers or maybe a gun salute honoring the American flag. Then someone screamed, “There’s a shooter.”

And, in an instant, everyone understood the reality.

They grabbed their children under their arms and ran. They left behind strollers, lawn chairs, cellphones and purses. They took only what mattered.

“People were terrified, screaming,” Highland Park resident Joe Leslie said. “It was a scene from a nightmare.”

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Jacki Sundheim coordinated events and bar and bat mitzvahs at North Shore Congregation Israel, according to the synagogue’s website.

Sundheim also taught preschool at Congregation Israel, where she was a lifelong member, according to a message from the synagogue. It also said her “work, kindness and warmth touched us all” and that she guided “innumerable among us through life’s moments of joy and sorrow, all of this with tireless dedication.”

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It was the Fourth of July, and the North Shore suburb of Highland Park became the latest American community to be terrorized by a mass shooting.

For hours after the attack, officers searched building by building near the parade route, which was littered with belongings abandoned in the chaos: A double stroller. Balloons. Bikes. Pacifiers. Sandals. A hat printed with stars and stripes.

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More than 100 law enforcement agencies had helped throughout the day to search for the suspect after he opened fire from a rooftop along the parade route. The police dragnet had started with a perimeter around the core of Highland Park, gradually spreading to include police activity in nearby neighborhoods and finally other suburbs.

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What haunts longtime Highland Park resident Dana Gordon now are the words of the mother of one of the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting victims.

Just days ago, Gordon helped organize an event in Highland Park dubbed “a community art action against gun violence.” It was prompted by the Uvalde shooting in May, and the names of its 21 victims were read.

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The most deadly incident since May happened when a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at a school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24. And on May 14, a racist attack led to the deaths of 10 African Americans at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.

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The Bulls hold close ties to the Highland Park community. They practiced for more than 20 years in Deerfield, less than 10 minutes from the site of the shooting, and Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were among many Bulls players and coaches to live in Highland Park during their tenure with the team.

In its statement the team called for increased action to combat gun violence. The Bulls previously partnered with other city teams to form the Chicago Sports Alliance, which directs grants to organizations such as the Chicago Crime Lab.

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Liam Hendriks, who was born in Australia, said he is “baffled’ by American gun culture.

“That’s what America is known for,” he said. “There are a lot of things that are good over here, but you look at the news and it’s just a complete … I can walk into the stores as a non-American and buy a handgun in certain states. And that baffles me because I had to take a driving test when I came over here. I won’t have to take a test if I want to get a gun. That’s stupid. Whoever thought that was a great idea is an idiot.”

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