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A shooting at a Fourth of July parade in an upscale Chicago suburb Monday morning left at least five people dead and 19 hospitalized, police said.
Authorities didn’t specify whether the five fatalities were included in the number of hospitalized victims following the shooting in Highland Park, Ill., which is located about 30 miles north of Chicago.
The mayhem occurred shortly after the parade started at 10 a.m., with hundreds of attendees fleeing for their lives.
“It was chaotic,” Highland Park resident Peter Kotonis, who said he saw crowds running as he arrived, told the Chicago Tribune.
“At that point I started calling my family to try to find them and eventually found out they had sheltered inside a building near the route. And so I met up with some of my friends, we picked up some people we knew, because we wanted to make sure they had a ride, and we got out of there.”
The shooter was believed to be active after 11 a.m. local time, according to CBS Chicago, which cited sources saying the gunfire may have come from the top of a building.
The city of Highland Park confirmed that police responded “to an incident” Monday morning.
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“Fourth Fest has been canceled,” the city said in its Facebook post. “Please avoid downtown Highland Park. More information will be shared as it becomes available.”
The village of Deerfield, Ill. — located about 3 miles from Highland Park — referenced a shooting in Highland Park as it announced that its parade was canceled.
“Due to a shooting in Highland Park, Family Days activities at Jewett Park have been cleared and the parade is canceled,” the Deerfield announcement read. “Please share that the parade activities are canceled with your family and friends.”
Pritzker was at the parade, and said in a tweet that his team was “closely monitoring the situation” and had “made all state resources available to the community.”
Members of Monday’s parade crowd in Highland Park began “running, hiding and screaming” as loud bangs resembling gun shots rang out, Elyssa Kaufman, a digital producer for the CBS 2 news station, told CBS Chicago.
The highly affluent town of Highland Park has been called home by Chicago athletes including Michael Jordan, who in 2020 listed his house there for just under $15 million, according to Forbes. It had previously listed at nearly double that amount. Jordan’s Chicago Bulls teammate Scottie Pippen found a buyer for his 10,000 square foot Highland Park mansion in 2021, the Chicago Tribune reported.
With News Wire Services
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