Six People Killed During Independence Day Parade in Illinois

At around 10:30 a.m. on Monday, six people were killed in a shooting during an Independence Day parade in Highland Park in Illinois and 24 people were hospitalized with serious injuries.

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"A gunman opened fire from a rooftop... Police are still searching for the shooter, and are urging people in the area to shelter in place," CBS reported, adding that the "shooter appears to be a white man, 18 to 20 years old."

The Highland Park City informed that police were responding to "an incident" and that the Independence Day parade had been cancelled. Illinois Governor Jay Robert Pritzker was at the parade and reported nine injuries as a result of the shooting.

A witness quoted by the Chicago Sun Times pointed out that at least 20 shots were heard in Highland Park, a municipality located about 40 kilometers from Chicago where some 30,000 people live, according to the 2020 census.

"There were 'people screaming and running. It was just really traumatizing. I was very terrified. I hid with my daughter actually in a little store. It just makes me feel like we’re not safe anymore,” Amarani Garcia said, as reported by CNBC. 

The Highland Park shooting is the latest example of the current wave of gun violence that prevails in the United States. On June 25, however, President Joe Biden signed an agreement voted by Congress to restrict access to weapons.

This law was approved almost a month after the massacre in Uvalde (Texas), where a young man broke into an elementary school and killed 19 children and two teachers with a semi-automatic rifle.

The law includes a review of the process for buying weapons for those under 21 years of age and extends the so-called "Red Flag" laws to the entire country, which allow the activation of a legal procedure to confiscate firearms.