An eyewitness recounted the horrific scene at Monday’s Highland Park parade celebrating Independence Day, telling CNN that she had watched as a young girl was shot to death in the street.
The witness, who introduced herself to CNN’s Adrienne Broaduss as only “Zoe,” explained that she and her father had arrived early to watch the pet parade and the children’s parade first — and she said that when the shooting first started, a number of people had believed it was fireworks or some other part of the planned festivities.
WATCH:
"All of a sudden everyone behind us started running. I looked back, probably 20 feet away from me, I saw a girl shot and killed. I saw her die," witness describes the horror at Highland Park parade. pic.twitter.com/Oy1QCgqKvt
— Virginia Kruta (@VAKruta) July 4, 2022
“You know, a little after the band went through, we heard pew-pew-pew, probably heard 50 rounds in total, at least,” Zoe described the moment the chaos began. “Everyone thought it was fireworks. Everyone said, oh, fireworks and the military people had just gone through with the shotguns, and I was like, something is wrong. I grabbed my dad and started running.”
“All of a sudden everyone behind us started running. I looked back, probably 20 feet away from me, I saw a girl shot and killed. The girl I’ve heard on the news with — in blood — I saw her die. I’ve never seen anything like this,” she continued.
Zoe went on to say that she and her father had found a dumpster to hide behind — and they had stayed there until police came to take them to the basement of a nearby sporting goods store.
“We hid there until the cops finally escorted us back to our car. They were wonderful, they drove us back to our car. I mean, I think there were people that we were hiding with, one man had been shot in the head, his ear, he was bleeding all over his face, and he was, like, I’m just happy that’s all happened. There was another girl that got escorted out that was shot in the leg,” Zoe added. “We were hiding in the basement for quite a while. We were right in the center. I mean, someone, 20 feet away, you know, someone — and then we went back to get our car keys and we saw the streets were quite littered. It looked like a battle zone and it’s disgusting.”
“It is disgusting and hearts are hurting knowing that that’s what you witnessed, that’s the image in your mind on this Fourth of July,” Broaduss agreed, going on to note that according to the additional reporting, a total of six people had died — and two dozen more had been injured. The suspect, she revealed, was an 18-20 year-old white male — and she said that a rifle had been recovered by law enforcement.
“A rifle … no, no, it was an automatic weapon,” Zoe replied, insisting that she had heard gunshots before and “rifles don’t do that.”
"A rifle — no, no, it was an automatic weapon," witness at Highland Park parade claims "rifles don't do that." pic.twitter.com/edrs0duiRr
— Virginia Kruta (@VAKruta) July 4, 2022
Reports so far have suggested that there was only one shooter and that he was most likely firing from a rooftop or some other position above the crowd.