July 4 Shooting Victims Remembered At Highland Park, Highwood Vigils

HIGHLAND PARK, IL — Hundreds of members of the Highland Park and Highwood communities gathered at candlelight vigils this week to remember victims of Monday's Independence Day parade shooting.

On Wednesday, Everts Park in Highwood had been scheduled to host the town's evening gourmet market about a mile and a half north of the scene of the mass shooting. Instead, community members met to share stories of where they had been during Monday's massacre, lit candles and left messages on memorials.

"Some people came out to pay their respects to the seven individuals who lost their lives and to the over 40 people who were injured, others have had emotions ranging from sadness, to anger, to disbelief, to relief, and then back to sadness," said Highwood Mayor Charlie Pecaro. "My hope is that you find strength in knowing that you are not alone. We all feel that way."

Pecaro urged the crowd to hold on to the belief that tomorrow will be better than today, that people are fundamentally good and made stronger through community.

"This park is not community. I, as mayor, am not community. But we, you, are community. We need to find strength in each other. If you see someone hurting we need to reach out, we need to be strong for one another," Pecaro said.

The vigil concluded with prayers from Jewish and Christian clergy followed by a bagpiper.

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The following evening at Sunset Woods Park in Highland Park, a pair of college students organized a community candlelight vigil and call to action on gun violence.

Jordana Hozman and Liza Tack started a local chapter of March for Our Lives, the nationwide gun violence prevention movement founded following the 2018 Parkland, Florida, high school shooting, before they graduated from Highland Park High School last year.

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"I'm really sad to be here with all of you right now quite frankly, it's been such a devastating few days," Hozman said.

"But we wanted to create this space to help everyone mourn, grieve and process in whatever way that looks like for them, while also honoring the incredible lives that those who've been lost in this tragedy lived, and also uplift the resiliency and strength of our community during this time," she said.

"I've really been moved by how all of us came together."

Hozman and Tack, the event's two teenage organizers, read out the names and held a moment of silence each of the seven people who were shot and killed at Monday's parade — Katherine Goldstein, 64; Irina McCarthy, 35; Kevin McCarthy, 37; Steve Straus, 88; Jacki Sundheim, 63 and Eduardo Uvaldo, 69.

U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Highland Park) was gathering with his campaign team at the start of the parade when the shooting began Monday.

He recalled that the community had gathered just a few weeks earlier in the same park to read the names of the 21 people killed in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and the 10 killed in a grocery store in Buffalo in May.

"We're reading the names of people murdered with weapons of war. These weapons do not belong in our classrooms, in our churches, on our streets or at our parades," Schneider said.

"We talk a lot about how the people who commit these heinous crimes get these weapons, but the bottom line is, these weapons are legally sold in our country, a uniquely American phenomenon. Day after mass shooting, gang shooting, suicide," he said. "Enough is enough."

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Calling for a ban on assault weapons like the rifle that prosecutors say fired more than 80 rounds in less than a minute from a rooftop into the crowd below, the congressman said each life taken by gun violence leaves a hole in hearts and communities.

"We will make their memories a blessing by standing strong, by rising up and making sure things like what happened at the end of that Independence Day parade in Highland Park, in the celebration of our nation's birth, of people's freedom and independence, that these stop happening in our country," he said.

Lake County State's Attorney Eric Rinehart said banning assault weapons was a common-sense measure to reduce gun violence.

"We have to take the argument to them. We're becoming more and more divided in this country. All of us want to talk to people who agree with us, none of us want that discomfort of maybe talking to somebody who disagrees," Rinehart said.

The county prosecutor, a former Highwood and current Highland Park resident who was speaking in his personal capacity, suggested everyone in the crowd think of one thing to advance the argument for a restriction on the civilian use of military-style firearms.

"We had an assault weapon ban in this country from 1994 to 2004. I'm old enough to remember that that was not exactly the least partisan era ever. If anybody remembers, Bill Clinton was President — he got impeached. And yet they still had a consensus that the weapons of war that are doing so much damage in this country should not be so accessible," he said.

Sheri Williams, an organizer with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said everyone deserves to be free from fear when attending schools, movies, malls, concerts, schools, temples, churches and parades and to come home safely afterwards.

"We shouldn't have to have the rest of the world know about this beautiful city like this," Williams said. "People and community known on their own, before Monday, for places like Ravinia, John Hughes movies, the former home of Michael Jordan. We shouldn't have to get to know the seven unique, loving, wonderful human beings in the past few days because of what happened. Those close to them will always know how amazing they were first."

Williams said the world is unfair, unjust, unacceptable and incomprehensible, but change is not impossible.

"As daunting as it may seem, this is preventable," she said. "We must have hope. We must be persistent. And we must not accept defeat for our future for our children's future, and for our grandchildren's future. We don't have a choice."

State Rep. Bob Morgan (D-Deerfield) said he wanted to make sure other communities do not have to come together the same way.

"I will fight every day, every minute in Springfield to make sure we never have this happen again — that we have an assault weapon ban, that we ban high-capacity magazines," Morgan said.

Morgan was about to take part in the parade when the shooting began about two blocks in front of him Monday morning. He said he heard a staffer shout out "gunshots" and saw people run before seeing a police car appear to sped into a crowd of people. After rushing his wife and young children to safety at the Metra, Morgan headed to back toward the scene of the shooting after the gunshots subsided.

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"When I'm standing there with victims, with people who saw, with people who've been hit by gun violence, I saw evil, but I stand here today to tell all of you I saw hope, because the people here, you, us, Highland Park strong," Morgan said. "What 'Highland Park Strong' means is we took care of each other. We raced to the face of danger. [Lake County] Sheriff John Idleburg ran into the crowd, ran into a hail of bullets to help people."

The state representative recalled that he headed back to the scene and helped authorities clear the scene. One woman had suffered a badly broken ankle, but there was no ambulance available to transport her. After getting her to shelter, Morgan said, about six men formed a human stretcher to carry her away from the scene. Others left storefronts to help carry away the wounded.

"Many of you are here right now," Morgan said. "You know who you are. You saved lives."

Morgan said he also encountered a mother and her children in an alley on the side of Port Clinton Square, recalling dried blood on a young girl's clothes after her father had been shot. He told Patch it was only when he heard the urgency in the voice of an officer that he understand the danger had not subsided — there was an unidentified mass shooter on the loose. Morgan said he sat down cross-legged with the young girl, who walked over to him and sat on his lap before he picked her up and escorted her mother away.

"If you stop to think about it," Morgan told Patch, "it's almost like it didn't happen."