Massacre in Highland Park | Shooter charged with 7 murders

(Highland Park) The young man accused of opening fire during US National Day celebrations in Highland Park, near Chicago, has been charged with seven murders and could spend the rest of his life in prison, the authorities said. authorities on Tuesday.

Robert Crimo, 21, may face “dozens of additional charges centered on each of the victims,” ​​which will be detailed later, said Lake County attorney general Eric Rinehart.

If found guilty, he could be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, he said.

Prepared “for weeks”, his attack was carried out with a “powerful rifle similar to an AR-15” to apparently fire randomly on the crowd who attended the July 4th parade from the top of the roof of a business, had said Christopher Covelli, a police official.

Robert Crimo had ‘dressed as a woman’ to hide his identity and may have worn a long hair wig to hide his face tattoos, he continued, adding that he then dropped his gun and faded into the mass of people fleeing.

The man, nicknamed Bobby, fired more than 70 shots, killing seven and wounding at least 35 according to a police report on Tuesday.

US Vice President Kamala Harris visited the site on Tuesday evening.

Makeshift Memorial-

Among those who lost their lives were a couple, Irina and Kevin McCarthy, whose two-year-old son, Aiden, had been brought to safety by locals.

Tuesday, the main street of this affluent suburb of Chicago remained frozen in the first moments of the shooting, with objects abandoned here and there in the chaos of Monday: stroller, tricycle or folding chairs.

In front of a church, blue hearts have been mounted on small white poles. In the middle are the names of the victims of the shooting. Residents of the town took turns on Tuesday evening to write a note about the hearts which will then be given to the families of the missing.

“We are all devastated”, summarizes in front of this makeshift memorial Susanna Calkins, a resident. She says she is immersed in “disbelief, but also resignation: these things happen again and again. And this time it’s here, it’s ours. »

The D^r David Baum, a doctor who participated in the rescue operations at the scene of the tragedy, testified on CNN to the horror of the attack, evoking victims “exploded” or “eviscerated” by the bullets.

A native of Highwood, a small town nearby, the shooter was identified through surveillance videos and tracing of the gun he had purchased legally, Covelli said.

According to the policeman, the young man had attempted suicide in April 2019 and had been followed by a doctor.

In September 2019, officers responded to his family’s home after a warning that he was “going to kill everyone”.

The police then seized sixteen knives, a dagger and a sword. He had not been arrested because no one had filed a complaint, underlined Mr. Cavelli.

Images archived on the suspect’s Twitter account show him in particular with a flag of support for former Republican President Donald Trump on his back.

“Sadness”

Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering told NBC that she knew the young man as a boy in the Boy Scouts.

“And we wonder: what happened? How can someone get so mad, so hateful, to go after innocent people who were just spending a day out with their family? “, did she say.

The city councilor spoke of “the incredible sadness and shock” that hit the city.

The country is still reeling from a series of shootings, one of which killed 21 people, including 19 children, on May 24 in Texas.

President Joe Biden ordered flags on public buildings to be lowered to half-mast on Tuesday. He recently achieved relative political success by getting Congress to pass a law aimed at better regulating the sale of weapons, of which nearly 400 million are in circulation in the United States.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, which includes suicides in its data, more than 22,400 people have been killed by firearms since the start of the year.