Independence Day in the United States is a time of celebration and patriotic fervor. It is usually synonymous with flags, fireworks, concerts and barbecues. The parade had just started, on this Monday morning, July 4, in Highland Park, an upscale and calm agglomeration located 40 km north of Chicago (Illinois), when shots rang out. Panic seized the participants, who came with their families. In total, according to a provisional report, the killer killed at least six people and injured 26, who were hospitalized. He had gone into a prone position, on the roof of a commercial building, so that he could not be clearly distinguished.
The perpetrator of the killing abandoned his assault rifle on the spot, before fleeing. The perimeter was cordoned off and a manhunt was launched to apprehend the suspect, who was finally arrested at the start of the evening at the wheel of his car. Robert Crimo, 22, is believed to be a local musician, nicknamed “Awake”, with a tattoo of roses wrapping around his neck. On social networks, his videos and photos were dissected endlessly throughout the evening to determine his ideological profile, his past commitments, even before the police concluded their hunt and disseminated reliable information.
In a statement, Joe Biden said he was shocked by a “senseless gun violence that once again mourned an American community on Independence Day.” The president spoke by phone with Democratic Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering. “There is so much more we can do and I will not give up in the fight against the epidemic of gun violence,” said Joe Biden, while recalling that he had recently signed “the first bipartisan gun reform legislation in nearly three decades.”
Nearly 400 million firearms in circulation
The American president was referring to the compromise text, negotiated between senators on both sides, under the leadership of Democrat Chris Murphy (Connecticut) and Republican John Cornyn (Texas), in response to the killings in Buffalo, New York. , and the school in Uvalde, Texas, in May. Among the proposed measures was the strengthening of criminal and psychiatric background checks for any arms buyer under the age of 21. But no consensus was possible to ban again the weapons of war, which had been banned from 1993 until the expiration of the legislation in 2004. There are 20 million in circulation today in the country.
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