all right we're back just to give another quick update and we are going to try to do this every
hour on the hour as best as we can one of the things when i start out here is i just want to
remind everybody that the information we have that's coming out is preliminary we're trying
to give you as much information as we possibly can in a timely way where we're not going to impact a
criminal investigation impact the safety of those on the scene actively looking for this individual
or impact the safety of anybody else so please keep that in mind information might change
okay i'm going to turn it over to the commander he's going to go over and talk
about the initial scene response what that sounded like what that looked like
greetings commander chris o'neill highland park police last name o-n-e-i-l-l
this morning at 10 14 a.m highland park police and fire department units were on scene for
the fourth of july parade that started at city hall at st john's by the train station
which ran to central avenue and then west to sunset park around 10 14 p.m we heard a loud
reports which we perceived as gunfire highland park police parade units immediately ran to the
plaza area the source to locate and identify the source of the noise and the gunshots and gunfire
we uh immediately identified that where people were down that we had numerous people injured
and shot we communicated that information with our police dispatch coordinated a
medical response with the fire department and began setting up a inner and outer perimeter
and also requested additional outside resources we established a command post staging area here
at the fire station on central avenue and we continue to obtain information or gather
information to try to coordinate who was doing the shooting and where that person was last seen
firearm evidence was located on a rooftop of a nearby business that was secured
a suspect description that we had at the time was broadcasted on the police radio
and shared with the responding and on scene units highland park police and fire personnel
began transporting injured parties to the highland park police departments
and additional resources helped us at the scene we had an on-scene police commander which was myself
our patrol supervisor handled city wide command for any other incidents and then we had a
commander assigned here at the fire station for the command post
most importantly as far as the investigative aspect goes of this and this is two-pronged
at this time number one we are aggressively looking for the individual who's responsible
for the shooting number two we have the criminal investigation that is occurring simultaneously
we're asking anybody with any video surveillance that they may have please review your cell phones
if you were snapping pictures in the area of second and central today that could help
investigators they may see something in there that may be useful and allow them to proceed
further with the investigation any business owners in that area were asking please review your video
surveillance if you have any video surveillance of that area at that time even if you don't see
anything in there we would love to be able to take a look at that so we can further our investigation
again the fbi is working in conjunction with us we have well over 100 law enforcement officers
out here on the scene doing the investigation on one side and doing the apprehension efforts on
the other so this is very active it's going to remain very active for the time to come
i'll try to answer some questions that i can but again please understand we can't give away certain
aspects of the investigation we don't want to negatively impact we want to arrest the offender
and hold him accountable for his actions was the building sealed where the rifle was recovered
and the witness statements i'm not sure of that right now are there any threats online
or in social media against the parade at all none that i am aware of uh certainly
investigators are coming through social media to see if there's any clues or any information
that they can uncover through social media that might help them with the investigation
so as of now we have approximately two dozen victims that were transported to area
hospitals there's a number of hospitals some hospitals did require going on bypass due to
receiving traumatic victims in such a high number of them
so hospitals throughout the region both lake and cook county received patients from this
and their conditions range some critical some serious were there any points
or made any contact with the suspect my understanding as of now is they ran for the
gunfire however the suspect ceased firing right around that point when they got close and on top
of the building is this a building where he's able to discreetly or hide himself during the shooting
or would he step on top of a roof and planes not all indications is he was discreet and he was very
difficult to see any information he might have stopped to reload some witnesses thought he might
have stopped that's something we're looking at you know certainly evidence technicians
are going to collect the the rounds that were discharged from the firearm
another thing to remember this is this is what is being considered is a very massive scene
it's very large you have where the shooting took place at second and central but as people fled
from the area there's evidence and other things that that may have gotten caught on their shoes
kicked around so it's a very large scene we're very fortunate to have the support of the fbi
but we're not going to leave any stones unturned we're going to look at every angle of this
throughout the investigation and try to figure it out as far as ages of the victims
the lake county coroner will hopefully be here for our three o'clock press briefing and we'll
be able to provide some information what i know as of now several of the deceased victims
unfortunately perished at the scene and it sounds like one of them was transported to
an area hospital where they're perished again this is preliminary information
changes especially when there's close to 30 people transported to various hospitals
what i'll say right now is it was a high-powered rifle
i i can't go into details just yet we will release that information as soon as we can
we walk a fine line with any criminal investigation where we don't want to
provide too much external information that can negatively impact what our detectives are
doing yeah it's a very sad situation where it sounds like spectators were
were targeted and and even those that were marching through the parade was
approximately three-quarters of the way through uh when the shooting occurred so very random
very intentional uh and a very sad day can you tell us anything more about the effort
we are working really hard to try to pinpoint where they could be it's it's i don't want to give
bad information that he could be in the city he could be somewhere else but we're looking into it
yeah it's it's a it's a very large conglomerate of law enforcement that's working together hand
in hand um the lake county major crime task force and the fbi are leading the
criminal investigation into this along with highland park police they are very involved
highland park police led the initial incident response and incident command
when this was all rapidly unfolding as far as the search for the individual we have
enlisted the help of several federal partners we have the state police we have nypis we have other
swat teams that are on the scene here and all working together to further that aspect as well
we're working as hard as we can i mean and we we want to make sure that
uh the information we're receiving and putting out is accurate uh and that when the
individual is apprehended it's the correct individual they're making they're working
they're working hard as far as the structure of the building
can you tell us how or he was able to get on top of the roof and make a quick escape i might be
able to provide that a little later i don't have that right now i let's do a couple more questions
sure my name is christopher covelli c-o-v-e-l-l-i
and i'm the spokesman for the lake county major crime task
communities force decide whether it was safe for them to hold the gatherings today
is that because so many police resources are here or just because it could be changed
well i think there's there's a couple reasons a couple ways communities are going to look at it
number one you have a tragic mass act of violence that was random here today at a community event
where people were gathered to celebrate uh and the offender still has not been apprehended thus far
so you know could this happen again we don't know what his intentions are at this point so certainly
uh we're not sure of that and on the other hand i think there's a lot of communities that uh are not
looking forward to celebrating after something like this happens right in their backyard
as of right now the information i have is there are six deceased
six do you have any reports of people in the crowd helping those who are injured
there there were and i'm sure they will come forward in the days to come but there were
a number of heroic actions by members of the community by police by first responders that
rushed in and immediately tended to the victims tried to get them help
more to come on that later right now our focus is on the investigation and catching this guy
separated from his or her or his parents i believe any updates there in terms of families so their
highland park police has established a family and friends reunification post and that's at the
highland park police department so anybody that's looking for somebody or anybody that uh got lost
or separated during the event they can go there uh the reunification is happening there again folks
is there are they still being told to stay there some some
people business owners employees of businesses have waited in their buildings for police escort
right now the swat team is escorting people out of those buildings getting them to safety
and being there for them so they feel comfortable as they're they're leaving
the facility but three o'clock we'll be back thank you folks