Six people were killed and at least two dozen injured when a man with a high-powered rifle opened fire from a rooftop at a Fourth of July parade in the wealthy Chicago suburb of Highland Park on Monday, turning a civic display of patriotism into a scene of panicked mayhem.
Officials told a news conference that six people were killed and 24 taken to hospital, and that a rifle was recovered from the scene. A hospital spokesperson reported 31 people were injured.
Police said they were searching for a white male about 18 to 20 years old and asked the public for tips and cellphone images and surveillance video to help find him.
“We are aggressively looking for the individual responsible,” sheriff’s department spokesperson Christopher Covelli told journalists. “He could be in the city; he could be somewhere else.”
The shooting comes with gun violence fresh on the minds of many Americans, after a massacre on May 24 killed 19 school children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and the May 14 attack that killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
