4th of July: Terror in Highland Park

 

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I have never written two posts in one day. 

I planned to do so this morning after I posted 4th of July Thoughts: Polarization Revisited… Again. 

We had no plans to go anywhere as we were isolating at home after testing positive.   I was watching the 1959 film, John Paul Jones, starring Robert Stack on Turner Classic Movies.  I had just been to Annapolis on Father’s Day and had the opportunity to visit the tomb of the great Revolutionary War Naval Commodore. I thought I would write about Jones and his impressive tomb at the US Naval Academy Chapel.  There is a most interesting story of when he died in 1792 in Paris.  He was buried there, and the exact location of his grave was lost in history.  A century later there was an effort to find his grave and move his remains to the US.

Well, that was my intention.  You can read that story on US Naval Academy website.

We were eating lunch and watching the next movie on TCM, Yankee Doodle Dandy, the classic 1942 film about George M. Cohan starring James Cagney.  My mother in-law called to tell us about a mass shooting at the 4^th of July Parade in Highland Park.  We immediately switched to a local news station which was already covering the story.  We were shocked that six people were killed and another twenty-four more were wounded or injured in the chaos.

We were glued to the TV for the next several hours.

Highland Park is two towns over, and it is 5.7 miles from our home to 2^nd Avenue and Central where it all took place.  Most years, we choose to go the Lake Bluff parade since it includes our town in their festivities.  We were shocked because a mass shooting occurred so close to home and on Independence Day!  It is a day to celebrate America.  It is a day to celebrate freedom.  It is a family day.  It is a day of fun, picnics, and fireworks. 

      Sadly, and tragically, it was another in a string of mass shootings and this one happened on the day we celebrate the self-evident truths that “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  What takes precedence, these noble self-evident truths or the more open to interpretation 2^nd Amendment of the Constitution?  I side with the families of the people who were murdered today and had their unalienable rights alienated and not the gunman’s right to bear a high powered semi-automatic rifle.

And this happened, here on the North Shore, near our home.  Having it happen so close was probably inevitable given the frequency that these mass shootings take place.  People in attendance that were interviewed all said the same thing and I paraphrase.  “I never thought something like this could happen here.  There is no place that is safe these days.”  This is sadly true. 

The so-called “person of interest,” Robert E. Crimo III, grew up in Highland Park.  When they first spoke his name on the local TV coverage, I googled it.  I found his Facebook page before it disappeared.  He only had a few posts.  The most recent from one year ago was a bit eerie, “You are all sinners.”  The only other Crimo that popped up was a Bob Crimo who ran for mayor in Highland Park in the last election and lost.  I am guessing the failed mayoral candidate may be the accused gunman’s father.  None of the local TV stations or any of the online news reports mentioned this.  I imagine this will be revealed in the coming days.

They just captured Crimo.  It was less than three miles from our house at the corner of Westleigh and US 41 in Lake Forest.  This is only 3 miles from our house.  We heard the sirens going north on IL 43 which runs parallel to US 41.

It was a crazy, sad, and tragic day.  It was impressive how the health care responders and various local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies worked so effectively together to get aid to those who needed it and then identify, find, and arrest the alleged culprit.  Peace to the souls of those who perished today and our deepest sympathies to their families.