A shooting during an Independence Day parade USAwhich occurred this Monday in the state of Illinois, left a balance so far of at least six deaths and more than twenty injured, international media report.
The incident occurred in the town of Highland Park, north of the city of Chicago, where great chaos was generated after several shots were heard. At the time of writing this note, the perpetrator of the massacre had not been identified or captured, according to the report of the digital site in Spanish of the BBC.
According to press releases, the police were still searching for a white man, between 18 and 20 years old, whom they consider “armed and dangerous.”
“This is an active incident,” authorities said in an update posted on the Highland Park website, advising those in the area to seek safe shelter.
Highland Park shooting: Six people dead and more than 20 injured https://t.co/EppBVP3rKP
— CNN in Spanish (@CNNEE) July 4, 2022
Agents secured a perimeter around downtown Highland Park and recovered “evidence of a firearm,” according to the statement cited by BBC.
Meanwhile, the Spanish newspaper The country Indian that the police immediately went to the scene, provided with a canine unit, to participate in the search for the perpetrator of the shooting, although so far only the rifle used by the aggressor has been found.
That medium adds that the shooter allegedly fired from the roof of a building located at a specific point on the parade route.
The authorities of Highland Park, a prosperous town of 30,000 inhabitants in the urban cone of Chicago, announced the cancellation of the parade and asked citizens to avoid the center, where the incident took place, details the Spanish media.
According to BBCa spokesman for North Shore Highland Park hospital told the agency Reuters which received 26 wounded, mainly from gunshot wounds, but also some who were injured when people fled from the gunfire. In addition, another five injured would have been transported to the North Shore Evanston hospital, adds that source.
After learning of the incident, President Joe Biden claimed to feel “shocked” at a new “senseless” mass shooting in the United States, the agency reports EFE.
While, The country recalls that armed violence, a structural phenomenon that for the White House has the characteristics of an epidemic, usually rebounds in the summer months, and that in Chicago alone nine people have died from the impact of a firearm during the long weekend holiday, out of a total of 57 people shot.
The statistics handled by the newspaper indicate that it would be a lower balance, if compared to the victims registered last year in the same period: 19 dead and more than a hundred injured, or the calculation of last weekend, with six dead. and 27 wounded.
However, all sources agree that the event occurs shortly after the approval of a modest bipartisan gun control legislationas a result of recent tragedies such as the bloody episode that caused the death of 19 minors and two teachers at a school in the town of Uvalde, Texasat the end of last May.
The right to acquire and bear firearms is one of the most polarized debates in American society and it is estimated that every year in that country some 40,000 people die from gunshots, including suicides.
