Highland Park, Illinois — Lessam Burns wanted to arrive early at the July 4th parade in Highland Park.
The competitive shooter Burns is unique just as he was setting up a watchtower for himself, his friends and their five children to enjoy the festival. I heard the sound of.
"I heard 20 to 30 rounds," he said. "It was definitely semi-automatic and fast paced."
Burns shouted to the children: "Gunfire. Go back to the car. Move." According to police, they have shooters in place. Approximately 150 yards from where I was, at the top of my business, I shot indiscriminately at the crowd with a "powerful" rifle.
According to Burns, all the active shooter training the children received at school was rewarded. They were calm and left immediately. When they got home, they tried to go to the pool, but a helicopter was hovering overhead. And the shooter was still loose.
"It's a very Jewish region. I hope it's not caused by anything other than mental illness," Burns said.
A scene of turmoil in a wealthy highland park on the outskirts of Chicago, where at least 6 people were killed and 24 were injured. I explained about.
Kristen Carlson evacuated to her mother's house a few blocks away from the scene with her two older children, and when family members and parade participants fled, she said, "On their face. I was able to see the horror. " Carlson helped others evacuate to the backyard of her mother's house in 600 blocks of Highland Park.
"People just ran and left things. That was horrible," she saidMSNBC. Told to. Harry Jackson. "I don't live here anymore, but I'm hiding here because I'm afraid to get in a car and go home."
City officials told people to evacuate on Monday afternoon. He urged him to call this an "active shooter case" because there were still a lot of shooters called black-haired white men in their late teens or early twenties.
Dr. David Baum, who participated in the parade, toldNBC Chicagothat the body he saw was "not an image that anyone who was not a doctor could easily handle. ".
"They suffered horrific injuries, probably those seen during the war, only when the bullets can blow up the body," he says. I did. They quickly obscured them and tried to drive others out.
Baum saidseveral medical professionals stayed behind to help treat the victims.
Other witnesses described the atmosphere of turmoil at the beginning of the slaughter around 10 am. Some thought the sound of the shooting was fireworks.
"I thought it was part of the parade," Gabriella Martinez told NBC Chicago.
Larry Bloom said the other participantsinitially thought that the bulletcame from one display on the float.
"I was screaming, and people were screaming," he said. They were panicking, and they were just scattered, and I know you, we didn't. You know, it was right above us.
Adrian Drell, who lives in Highland Park, didn't hear the gunshot, but was confused when he saw the band at Highland Park High School suddenly break up and escape.
"It's dispersed. They started running, and I thought," Uh. " "Retired journalist Drell told NBC News. '. Then a policeman with a big dog appears:'Get out of here. Get out of here. '"
Amylani Garcia in NBC Chicago, He rushed to nearby McDonald with his daughter and said he hid there until his cousin could take them to a "safe" place and evacuate.
"You don't expect it," Garcia said. "Today we don't feel safe."
Another Highland Park resident, Eduardo Gonzalez, said he went to the parade even if his wife didn't work.
He quit her job of dropping her and returned to her home. After a while, I heard screams outside the house and watched the parade flow past the house. He said the running woman screamed. "I have a shooter."
Gonzales moved from the Edgewater district of Chicago to Highland Park a year ago.
"Maybe you'll hear gunshots three times a year," Gonzales said of his time in Chicago. He gestured to the sea of emergency and military vehicles across from his home.
"There was no such thing," he said.