The gunman who opened fire on a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Ill., had allegedly been planning the attack for weeks and dressed in women’s clothing to ensure he was not recognized, police have revealed. A seventh victim of the shooting died on Tuesday as new details about the 21-year-old suspect emerged.
After the gunman opened fire from the rooftop of a building along the parade route Monday morning—firing at least 70 rounds, which hit at least 36 people—he climbed down, dropped the AR-15-style rifle he used and blended into the fleeing crowd, police said.
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To conceal his identity and facial tattoos that made him more recognizable, he wore women’s clothing, which allowed him to pass without notice, said Christopher Covelli, Deputy Chief of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
“He blended right in with everybody else as they were running around, almost as if he was an innocent spectator as well,” said Covelli.
In addition to the dead, at least 30 people were wounded; victims ranged in age from 8 to 85, police said. The suspect was at large for hours before being arrested—leading to Fourth of July events across the Chicago area being canceled.
It is the latest devastating mass shooting in a public place in America—and one of numerous outbreaks of violence across the U.S. over the holiday weekend.
What happened?
As a Fourth of July parade was underway in Highland Park at 10:14 a.m. Monday, a shooter opened fire from the rooftop of a nearby building. Witnesses said they believed at first that the gunfire was fireworks. Accounts from people at the parade show that the shooting caused mass panic, as parade-goers fled and children were separated from parents.
Police responded to the shooting quickly, but the gunman was able to escape because he was in disguise, police said. The suspect walked to his mother’s home nearby, where he borrowed her car and fled. As the shooter remained at large for hours, Highland Park residents were urged to shelter in place as more than 100 law enforcement officials were called to the scene and dispatched to find the suspect. Suburban communities in Illinois began canceling Fourth of July festivities, urging residents to remain at home while “the threat is still at large”.
On Monday evening, police named 21-year old Robert “Bobby” Crimo III as a person of interest in the case. He was arrested eight hours later in Lake Forest, Ill. after leading police on a chase when an officer attempted a traffic stop. Crimo has yet to be charged in relation to the shooting.
What do we know about the suspected gunman?
Authorities had “a significant amount of digital evidence” that helped identify Crimo as a suspect, according to Christopher Covelli, spokesperson for the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force. The suspect posted music online under a pseudonym, along with music videos that often included animated depictions of mass murder.
The online activity “reflected a plan and a desire to commit carnage for a long time in advance,” Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering told NBC’s Today show on Tuesday. Police have not yet identified a motive.
Rotering said she knew the suspect years ago, when she was a Cub Scout pack leader. “He was just a little boy,” she said, “It’s one of those things where you step back and you say, ‘What happened?’ How did somebody become this angry, this hateful to then take it out on innocent people who, literally, were just having a family day out?”
Police said he bought the rifle used in the shooting legally in Illinois. He left the weapon, described as a high powered rifle “similar to an AR-15,” behind at the scene and federal agents were able to use it to identify Crimo as the shooting suspect, Covelli said.
A second rifle was found in the vehicle Crimo was driving when he was stopped by police. Handguns were found at his home. All were legally purchased.
Highland Park passed an assault weapons ban in 2013
In the months after the shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school nearly a decade ago, Highland Park passed an ordinance banning AR-15s and AK-47s. The decision was highly contested by residents at the time, the Chicago Tribune reported. A local pediatrician and the Illinois Rifle Association sued the city, with the decision ultimately upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The suspect used a “high-powered rifle” that was “similar to an AR-15,” police said Tuesday. They would not say whether the suspect gave a Highland Park address when buying the gun, or where exactly the gun store was located. Another rifle and handguns were recovered in subsequent searches of the suspect’s vehicle and home.
Rotering told National Public Radio that the suspect violated the city’s local ban on assault weapons. “Nationally, we need a collaboration across our states, across our municipalities,” she said. “We did what we could within the confines of current, existing law. We need our nation’s leaders to take necessary steps to prevent further carnage in people’s hometowns.”
Who are the victims?
There were six people killed in the shooting and more than 30 injured, including children as young as 8, police said. Five of the victims died at the scene of the shooting, while one died at the hospital.
Highland Park Hospital admitted 25 people with gunshot wounds, 19 of whom were treated and sent home, according to Dr. Brigham Temple, medical director of emergency preparedness. He said that “four or five” of those hospitalized were children, with injuries varying. “Some of them were minor,” Temple said at a press conference Monday. “Some of them were much more severe.”
So far, two victims have been publicly identified.
Jacki Sundheim, 63, a member of the North Shore Congregation Israel in Glencoe, Ill., was among those killed in the Fourth of July shooting. “Jacki’s work, kindness and warmth touched us all,” the synagogue wrote in a statement. “There are no words sufficient to express the depth of our grief for Jacki’s death and sympathy for her family and loved ones.”
Also killed was Nicolas Toledo, 76, who attended the parade with his family. “What was [supposed] to be a fun family day turned into a horrific nightmare for us all,” his granddaughter, Xochil Toledo, wrote in a fundraising message. “As a family we are broken, and numb.”
TIME will update this as more information becomes available.
A violent July 4 weekend
The shooting in Highland Park was the largest holiday weekend attack, but not the only one to stain Fourth of July festivities. Since Friday, there have been 18 mass shootings in communities across the nation, most of them on Monday, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident where four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter.
The pattern of mass shootings continues to haunt a nation still grieving from the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas where 19 children and two teachers were killed; and the shooting at a Buffalo, N.Y. supermarket where a gunman—who was allegedly driven by racist intent—shot and killed 10 Black people.
Less than 12 hours before the Highland Park shooting on Monday, five people were injured in Chicago’s south side, roughly 35 miles away. In the city of Chicago alone, at least 57 people had been shot over the weekend, nine of them fatally, according to NBC Chicago. At a Fourth of July block party across the state line from Chicago in Gary, Ind., a shooting left three people dead and seven wounded.
In Philadelphia, two police officers were shot near the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Monday night. In Minneapolis, eight people were injured in a shooting in Boom Island Park on Monday. One person was killed and four were injured in Kenosha, Wis. Another person was killed in Sacramento, Calif., and four more were injured, when shots were fired as a club was closing early Monday morning. Six more were injured in a shooting in Richmond, Va., and another four were injured in a shooting in Kansas City, Mo.
Correction, July 5
Because of an editing error, the original version of this story misstated the number of victims in the Uvalde, Texas, shooting. It was 19 children, not 17.
This post first appeared on Time.com
