Videos of the Highland Park shooting show the horrific moment when residents hear gunshots and run for their lives during a July 4 parade in Illinois.
Authorities later identified the shooter as 22-year-old Robert "Bobby" Crimo III, also known by the nickname "Awake the Rapper." The suspect, who is not yet in police custody and remains at large, is said to have opened fire from the roof of what was an outdoor outfitting store in the area, picking off people in the crowd.
Highland Park Shooting
At first, the people watching the Highland Park parade thought that the gunshot sounds were from Independence Day fireworks. The suspect was from the Highland Park area and is believed to be driving a 2010 silver Honda Fit with Illinois plates reading dm80653.
Officials described the gunman as being between 18 and 20 years old, white, of "slight build" with long black hair, and is wearing a white or a blue t-shirt, and used what sounded like a semiautomatic rifle during the attack that he later abandoned before fleeing, as per Dailymail.
Police officials earlier said they were trying to trace the weapon they found back to its owner in the hopes that it would lead them to him. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said that Crimo has tattoos showing four tally marks with a line through them on his right cheek, red roses and green leaves on his neck, and a cursive script above his left eyebrow that reads "Awake."
Authorities said that the gunman is believed to have ties in the communities of Rockford, DeKalb, and Elgin in Illinois. The suspect started firing less than 15 minutes after the parade began, and witnesses said they saw children being picked off in the crowd.
According to NBC Chicago, at least six people were killed during the Monday shooting, leaving roughly two dozen others injured. In one video shared on TikTok, parade-goers could be seen looking toward the location where more than a dozen gunshots could be heard before running for their lives.
Panic in the Area
In other video footage, several gunshots could be heard, followed by a pause and another round of gunshots. Some of the videos showed that more than 50 shots were fired in the Highland Park area.
One witness, Larry Bloom, who was in the area when the shooting began, said that he heard like a "pop, pop, pop" and noted that everybody thought it was a display on one of the floats. The resident said he started screaming, joining others who started panicking and scattering around the area.
On Monday evening, Highland Park Police Lou Jogmen identified Crimo as a person of interest in connection with the shooting before he was named a suspect. Christopher Covelli, the spokesperson for the Lake County Major Crime Task Force, said that the gunman used a ladder attached to the building on a wall in an alley to access the roof where he shot from, CNN reported.