At least six people were killed and 30 were wounded after a gunman opened fire on an Independence Day parade from a rooftop in United States’ Chicago on Monday.
Hundreds of marchers, parents with strollers and children were seen fleeing in terror after the gunman started firing, police said.
Police named 22-year-old Robert Crimo as the prime suspect and nabbed him after a manhunt that went on for hours on Monday.
The governor of Illinois, J B Pritzker, addressing the media said, “It is devastating that a celebration of America was ripped apart by our uniquely American plague.”
He said, “I’m furious because it does not have to be this way... while we celebrate the Fourth of July just once a year, mass shootings have become a weekly — yes, weekly — American tradition.”
Crimo was arrested several hours after the incident after the police released his photo and an image of the car he was travelling in.
A resident of Highland Park, Barbara Harte, 73, who stayed away from the parade for fear of a shooting said, “There’s no safe place”.
Meanwhile, Christopher Covelli, the spokesperson for Lake County Major Crime Task Force said that several of the victims died at the scene and one was taken to a hospital, but died there. The details of the victims or the wounded have not been released by the police.
As many as 26 patients were taken to the NorthShore University Health Center, where all but one had gunshot wounds, the medical director of emergency preparedness, Dr. Brigham Temple said. He estimated that four or five patients were children.
The President of United States, Joe Biden said on Monday that he and first lady Jill Biden were “shocked by the senseless gun violence that has yet again brought grief to an American community on this Independence Day.” He said he had “surged Federal law enforcement to assist in the urgent search for the shooter, who remains at large at this time.”
Biden signed the widest-ranging gun violence bill which was passed by Congress in decades, a compromise that highlighted at once both progress on a long-intractable matter and the deep-rooted partisan divide that exists.
