At least two shooters opened fire just before 3 a.m. on the 1600 block of East 7th Avenue in the Ybor City area, Tampa Police Chief Lee Bercaw said during a press conference at the scene.

The fight occurred in an area with several bars and clubs, and there were large numbers of late night revelers in the area at the time, Bercaw said. Police were not immediately sure if the people involved in the fight were inside any of the bars before the shooting.

Tampa police spokeswoman Jonee Lewis said “hundreds” of people were out on the streets as numerous nightspots closed early Sunday. She said one person was detained but no charges were immediately filed. “They’re being questioned and we’ll go from there,” Lewis said.

Police have not released the names of those killed, but Emmitt Wilson said his 14-year-old son, Elijah, was one of the fatalities. Wilson came to the scene Sunday after getting a call that his son was a victim.

“It’s madness to me. I don’t even feel like I’m here right now,” Wilson said. “I hope the investigators do their job and find out who killed my son.”

Video posted online shows people, many in Halloween costumes, drinking and talking on the street when about a dozen shots ring out followed seconds later by about eight more, creating a stampede. Some people topple over metal tables and take cover behind them. Video from the aftermath shows police officers treating several people lying wounded on the ground.

“It was a disturbance or a fight between two groups. And in this fight between two groups we had hundreds of innocent people involved that were in the way,” Bercaw said.

He did not provide details of the injuries suffered by the victims taken to area hospitals.

Police are still investigating the reason for the fight between the two groups, he said.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, a former city police chief, said the problem isn’t a lack of policing, but the easy access to guns.

“Yet again, a senseless loss of life by those choosing to settle a dispute with firearms. Lives lost and others forever changed. To what end? The Tampa Police Department had 50 officers deployed in the area at the time, so this is not a law enforcement issue. Bad decisions made in a split second and the proliferation of readily available guns are responsible for these almost daily incidents,” she said in a statement.

On Sunday morning, the scene of the shooting was quiet — with few businesses open yet, as officers had the area blocked off. Roosters that roam the historic Ybor City streets wandered among empty cups, beer bottles and shoes left behind.

A witch costume sat in the street.

Two young women who came to the scene Sunday morning said they decided not to go to Ybor City the night before because of the crowds.

“We know how Ybor gets,” said Minna Cohen, a 23-year-old recent University of Tampa graduate. “A lot of crime happens here often. You sometimes know not to go to certain places.”

Her friend, 21-year-old Carolina Londoner, said when the bars all close in the early morning hours the streets are packed and unruly.

“When everyone comes together it gets messy, and it’s that way all night,” she said.

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“The third one, when I walked over to see if someone was hurt, I saw a person get shot and fall off their stool,” Asselin said.

It was just before 7 p.m. Wednesday at Just-in-Time Recreation, a 34-lane bowling alley where the $75 “Pizza, Pins and Pepsi” special included a large pizza, a pitcher of soda and two hours of bowling for six people.

One bowler had just removed his shoes when he thought he heard a balloon popping some 15 feet (4.5 meters) behind him. He turned toward the door, saw a man holding a gun, and took off running down one of the lanes.

“I slid basically into where the pins are and climbed up into the machine,” he said.

The gunman, Robert Card, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot Friday, two nights after he destroyed an innocent night of bowling and socializing and turned it into tragedy. People gunned down bowling for strikes and spares, throwing beanbags, shooting pool, having beers with friends, working the night shift.

For Asselin and her mother, Tammy, the situation was especially gut-wrenching. A coach hustled the 10-year-old and several of her youth league teammates outside. An employee hid some of the children in a backroom office while other workers barricaded themselves in a freezer. She became separated from her mother, who initially stood frozen as others fled.

Turning to run, Tammy Asselin tripped over some bowling ball bags and took a hard fall before hiding behind a flipped over table and calling 911. Authorities said the first of multiple calls came in at 6:56 p.m. Four plainclothes officers who were at a nearby shooting range arrived a minute and a half after the first call, followed by uniformed officers less than three minutes later.

At one point, a young boy turned to Asselin. “Don’t cry,” he told her. “It will be OK.”

Several more shots were followed by a strange silence.

“Is he hunting or is he dead?” Asselin thought. “Is it safe? Are the police here?”

“Does anyone see Toni?” she shouted before being hushed by others who worried the shooter was still there.

“I had thought maybe the last shot we heard, he had taken his life,” she said.

Instead, the shooter headed 4 miles (6.44 kilometers) south to Schemengees Bar & Grille, where workers from other bars and restaurants could get 25% discounts every Wednesday night and employees were collecting Halloween-themed cocktail recipes for a cornhole tournament planned for later in the week.

The restaurant was hosting an event for members of the deaf community, and cornhole games were underway when a man entered and started shooting. In total, 18 people would be killed at the bowling alley and restaurant. Thirteen others were wounded.

Peyton Brewer-Ross, who enjoyed the game of cornhole so much that he brought out the angled boards and bags at family gatherings, had a spot next to the door and was likely one of the first at the bar to die, according to his brother.

“When he was shot, he was doing the thing he loved,” Wellman Brewer said.

Bar manager Joe Walker picked up a butcher knife and tried to stop the gunman, Walker’s father told multiple media outlets.

“And that’s when he shot my son to death,” Leroy Walker told WGME-TV.

Walker said his son was shot twice in the stomach.

“He died as a hero,” he told NBC News.

Authorities received multiple calls from Schemengees at 7:08 p.m., and the first officers arrived five minutes later.

An hour later, they released a photo of the suspected shooter. By 9:30 p.m., they had received a call identifying him as Card, 40, of Bowdoin. Lewiston residents were urged to stay inside with their doors locked.

Fern Asselin and his wife were waiting outside the bowling alley Wednesday night for word about their daughter and granddaughter. Finally, after two hours he got a call from his granddaughter, Toni.

“And the words that came out were four words I’ll never forget,” he said. “It was: ‘I’m not dead, Pepere.’”

Just before 10 p.m., police found Card’s car at a boat launch in Lisbon, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from Lewiston. Those who had been in the bowling alley were taken to the city’s middle school to be reunited with their families.

“Now it’s midnight and I’m just getting home,” the bowler who hid in the bowling pin machinery told The Associated Press, identifying himself only as Brandon. “All my stuff’s there, no shoes, just ready to go home. I’m tired.”

At a late-night news conference, officials said more than 350 law enforcement personnel had joined the search for Card, a U.S. Army reservist they described as a “person of interest.”

By morning, authorities were calling Card an armed and dangerous suspect who should not be approached. Authorities launched a multistate search on land and water, including patrols along the Kennebec River. Schools as far away as Kennebunk, more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Lewiston, closed out of caution, as did public buildings in Portland, the state’s largest city.

Much of the search Thursday focused on property owned by Card’s relatives in Bowdoin. Two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that investigators found a note at a home associated with Card on Thursday addressed to his son. The officials described it as a suicide note, but said it didn’t provide a specific motive for the shooting. On Friday night, authorities found Card’s body at a recycling plant where he once worked.

Tammy Asselin, who later learned that her cousin Tricia was killed at the bowling alley, wondered Friday if the gunman was thinking of someone he hated as he opened fire. She said her daughter also has been asking questions.

“Why the bowling alley?” Asselin said. “Why us? Why good people? And that’s what we don’t know.”

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A day after appearing in Iowa, DeSantis was back in the state capital of Tallahassee on Sunday for a news conference on Tropical Storm Idalia. He urged Floridians to heed the advice of emergency managers. He also offered condolences and condemned the killing of three Black people by a white man who authorities say left behind a suicide note, a will, and writings with racist material.

Later Sunday, DeSantis appeared at a vigil outside the Jacksonville store where the shootings occurred. The Republican governor, who was met with boos when he briefly addressed the crowd, called the gunman a “scumbag” and said there was no tolerance for racist violence in Florida.

DeSantis’ campaign schedule had called for him to be in South Carolina Monday for a morning town hall in Kershaw and a barbecue with Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., in Anderson. But Sunday night, his campaign spokesman Bryan Griffin announced the governor was canceling his South Carolina travel. His wife, Casey DeSantis, is still expected to appear at the barbecue but the town hall in Kershaw was canceled.

“In light of the approaching hurricane, the Governor will be staying in Florida on Monday to assist with preparations,” Griffin said.

Asked at his Sunday news conference whether he would be in Florida this week, Ron DeSantis responded, “I’m here. I’m here.”

“We’re locked in on this; we’re going to get the job done. This is important. So people can rest assured,” the governor said, adding that the state is staging personnel and equipment to prepare for the storm.

Duncan said in a statement that he was excited to have the first lady of Florida speak on behalf of DeSantis at the event expected to draw more than 2,000 people.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Florida and Ron as they prepare for this storm,” Duncan said.

DeSantis has stumbled on the national stage since beginning his presidential campaign earlier this year and has at times struggled to connect with voters. He returned to Florida from Iowa, where he is campaigning extensively and hoping for a strong showing in the state’s leadoff caucuses. He remains in a distant second place behind former President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.

The storm is pointed toward Florida as the nation tries to make sense of another mass shooting Saturday, this time at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, where a 21-year-old white man fatally shot three Black people. Federal authorities are investigating the attack as a hate crime.

“Perpetrating violence of this kind is unacceptable, and targeting people due to their race has no place in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis’ policies around race and race-related teaching have been a flashpoint in his time as governor.

In July, DeSantis faced criticism for his defense of new public school curriculum on Black history in Florida, which specified that teachers were required to instruct middle-school students that enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

DeSantis said his critics intentionally misrepresented one line of the sweeping curriculum, but it and his defense drew blowback from Florida teachers, civil rights leaders, the Biden White House and some Black Republicans, including Florida Rep. Byron Donalds and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who is running against DeSantis for the GOP nomination.

As governor, DeSantis has also banned critical race theory, a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism, from Florida classrooms and worked to restrict diversity, equity and inclusion programs in schools.

At the vigil in Jacksonville on Sunday, Democratic City Councilwoman Ju’Coby Pittman, who represents the neighborhood where the shooting happened, addressed DeSantis personally during her remarks.

“Governor, I know you’re here,” Pittman said. “And you know what? I’m glad you’re here, because you can see the people and the impact it’s had on the community.”

A man somewhere in the crowd shouted: “He don’t care!”

As DeSantis got up to speak, he was met with boos from the crowd of about 200 people.

Pittman took the microphone and asked people to listen to him, saying, “It ain’t about parties today. A bullet don’t know a party.”

DeSantis, in his brief remarks, called the gunman a “major league scumbag.”

“What he did is totally unacceptable in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said. “We are not going to let people be targeted based on their race.”

Later at the vigil, the Rev. Jeffrey Rumlin, pastor of The Dayspring Church in Jacksonville, addressed DeSantis’ remarks.

“Respectfully, governor, he was not a scumbag,” Rumlin said of the gunman. “He was a racist.”

His remark got a loud cheer from the crowd.

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The shootings took place over several city blocks in the southwestern neighborhood of Kingsessing. Responding officers chased the suspect as he continued to fire, and he was arrested in an alley after giving himself up, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said at a news conference.

“Thank God our officers were on the scene and responded as quickly as they did. I can’t even describe the level of bravery and courage that was shown, in addition to the restraint that was shown here,” Outlaw said.

No connection was immediately known between the victims and the shooter, she said. He had a bulletproof vest, an “AR-type rifle,” multiple magazines, a handgun and a police scanner.

Officers were flagged down at about 8:30 p.m., and multiple calls of shots fired came in from Kingsessing. Police found some gunshot victims, and as they were attending to them, they heard more gunfire, Outlaw said. Police later told Fox 29 that a fifth victim was found. He was chased into his home and shot to death. Bullet casings were found outside the home.

The suspected shooter was identified as a 40-year-old man. A second person was also taken into custody who may have returned fire at the suspect, but police did not know whether there was a connection between the two people, Outlaw said.

The chief said dozens of shell casings were found across an eight-block area.

“You can see there are several scenes out here,” Outlaw said. “We’re canvassing the area to get as much as we can, to identify witnesses, to identify where cameras are located and to do everything to figure out the why,” Outlaw said.

Three of the dead were 20 to 59 years old, while the fourth, who had not yet been identified, was estimated to be between 16 and 21. The victim found in his home was 31 years old. All were male.

The two hospitalized victims are boys, ages 2 and 13. They were in stable condition, Outlaw said.

The shooting occurred a day after gunfire erupted at a holiday weekend block party in Baltimore, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the southwest, killing two people and wounding 28 others. The wounded in that shooting ranged in age from 13 to 32, with more than half minors, according to officials.

The Philadelphia violence is the country’s 29th mass killing in 2023, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University, the highest on record by this time in the year.

The number of people killed in such events is also the highest by this time of the year.

There have been more than 550 mass killings since 2006, according to the database, in which at least 2,900 people have died and at least 2,000 people have been injured.

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The post Gunman opens fire at random on Philadelphia streets, killing 5 before he is arrested appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

Several of the victims were taken to a children’s hospital, police spokesperson Deanna Bettineschi said. However, authorities have not yet released the ages of the victims or provided details about their conditions.

A preliminary investigation shows that an altercation between two groups resulted in gunfire, police said. One person has been detained and another suspect is still being sought.

The shooting happened about 6:30 p.m. on the boardwalk near a convenience store, a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream store, and a Subway sandwich shop.

Alvie Carlton Scott III said he was on the beach when all of a sudden he heard numerous gunshots go off. He said he hid behind a tree and then fled the area after a police officer told people to run.

Jamie Ward, who was also on the broadwalk, said several young men were fighting in front of the stores when one pulled a gun and started shooting.

Videos posted on Twitter on Monday evening showed emergency medical crews responding and providing aid to multiple injured people.

Police said there would be a heavy presence of officers as the investigation continues. Officials were also setting up an area for family members to reunite.

“Thank you to the good samaritans, paramedics, police, and emergency room doctors and nurses for their immediate response to aid the victims of today’s shooting,” Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy said in a statement.

Hollywood Beach is a popular beach destination about 11 miles (17 kilometers) south of Fort Lauderdale and 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Miami. The beach was expected to see more visitors than usual with the Memorial Day holiday.

The post 6 adults, 3 children injured in shooting at Hollywood Beach Broadwalk appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

The shooting, the 15th mass killing in the country this year, comes just two weeks after a former student killed three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, about 160 miles (260 kilometers) to the south. That state’s governor and his wife also had friends killed in that shooting.

Police in Louisville arrived as gunshots were still being fired inside Old National Bank and exchanged fire with the shooter, Louisville Metro Police Department Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey said at a news conference. It wasn’t clear whether the shooter killed himself or was shot by officers.

“We believe this is a lone gunman involved in this that did have a connection to the bank. We’re trying to establish what that connection was to the business, but it appears he was a previous employee,” Humphrey said.

Nine people, including two police officers, were treated for injuries from the shooting, the University of Louisville Hospital spokeswoman Heather Fountaine said in an email. One of the officers was in critical condition, she said. At least three patients had been discharged.

An emotional Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said he lost friends in the shooting in the building on East Main Street not far from the Louisville Slugger Field and Waterfront Park.

“This is awful,” he said. “I have a very close friend who didn’t make it today. And I have another close friend who didn’t, either. And one who’s at the hospital that I hope is going to make it through.”

It was the second time that Beshear was personally touched by a mass tragedy since becoming governor.

In late 2021, one of the towns devastated by tornadoes that tore through Kentucky was Dawson Springs, the hometown of Beshear’s father, former two-term Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear. Andy Beshear frequently visited Dawson Springs as a boy and has talked emotionally about his father’s hometown.

Gov. Andy Beshear shared personal ties to multiple victims of a shooting at a Louisville bank Monday.

Beshear spoke as the investigation in Louisville continued and police searched for a motive. Crime scene investigators could be seen marking and photographing numerous bullet holes in the windows near the bank’s front door.

A man who fled the building during the shooting told WHAS-TV that the shooter opened fire with a long rifle in a conference room in the back of the building on the first floor.

“Whoever was next to me got shot — blood is on me from it,” he told the news station, pointing to his shirt. He said he fled to a break room and shut the door.

Humphrey, the deputy chief, said the actions of responding police officers undoubtedly saved lives.

“This is a tragic event,” he said. “But it was it was the heroic response of officers that made sure that no more people were more seriously injured than what happened.”

The 15 mass shootings this year are the most during the first 100 days of a calendar year since 2009, when 16 had occurred by April 10, according to a mass killings database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.

Going back to 2006, the first year for which data has been compiled, the years with the most mass killings were 2019 and 2022, with 45 and 42 mass killings recorded during the entire calendar year. The pace in 2009 slowed later in the year, with 32 mass killings recorded that year.

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Police: 4 killed in shooting at downtown Louisville bank

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“Sorry everyone but I did not plan this I promise things just fell in place like I was led by the Satan,” Andre Bing wrote on a note that was left on his phone, Chesapeake Police said Friday.

Police also said the gun, a 9 mm handgun, was legally purchased on the morning of the shooting and that Bing had no criminal record.

The note was redacted slightly to eliminate names of specific people he mentioned.

He claimed he was “harassed by idiots with low intelligence and a lack of wisdom” and said he was pushed to the brink by a perception his phone was hacked.

He wrote, “My only wish would have been to start over from scratch and that my parents would have paid closer attention to my social deficit.” Bing died at the scene of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Coworkers of Bing who survived the shooting said he was difficult and known for being hostile with employees. One survivor said Bing seemed to target people and fired at some victims after they were already hit.

Jessica Wilczewski said workers were gathered in a store break room to begin their overnight shift late Tuesday when Bing, a team leader, entered and opened fire. While another witness has described Bing as shooting wildly, Wilczewski said she observed him target certain people.

“The way he was acting — he was going hunting,” Wilczewski told The Associated Press on Thursday. “The way he was looking at people’s faces and the way he did what he did, he was picking people out.”

She said she observed him shoot at people who were already on the ground.

“What I do know is that he made sure who he wanted dead, was dead,” she said. “He went back and shot dead bodies that were already dead. To make sure.”

Wilczewski said she had only worked at the store for five days and didn’t know with whom Bing got along or had problems. She said being a new employee may have been the reason she was spared.

She said that after the shooting started, a co-worker sitting next to her pulled her under the table to hide. She said that at one point, Bing told her to get out from under the table. But when he saw who she was, he told her, “Jessie, go home.” She said she slowly got up and then ran out of the store.

Former coworkers and residents of Chesapeake, a city of about 250,000 people near Virginia’s coast, have been struggling to make sense of the rampage.

Bing’s death note rambles at times through 11 paragraphs, with references to nontraditional cancer treatments and songwriting. He blanches at a comparison to serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, saying “I would have never killed anyone who entered my home.”

And he longs for a wife but says he didn’t deserve one.

“I was actually one of the most loving people in the world if you would get to know me,” he wrote.

Some who worked with Bing, 31, said he had a reputation for being an aggressive, if not hostile, supervisor who once admitted to having “anger issues.” But he also could make people laugh and seemed to be dealing with the typical stresses at work that many people endure.

“I don’t think he had many people to fall back on in his personal life,” said Nathan Sinclair, who worked at the Walmart for nearly a year before leaving earlier this month.

During chats among coworkers, “We would be like ‘work is consuming my life.’ And (Bing) would be like, ‘Yeah, I don’t have a social life anyway,’” Sinclair recalled Thursday.

Sinclair said he and Bing did not get along. Bing was known for being “verbally hostile” to employees and wasn’t particularly well-liked, Sinclair said. But there were times when Bing was made fun of and not necessarily treated fairly.

Police have identified the victims as Brian Pendleton, 38; Kellie Pyle, 52; Lorenzo Gamble, 43; and Randy Blevins, 70, who were all from Chesapeake; and Tyneka Johnson, 22, of nearby Portsmouth. The dead also included a 16-year-old boy whose name was withheld because of his age, police said.

A Walmart spokesperson confirmed in an email that all of the victims worked for the company.

Two others who were shot remained hospitalized, police said Friday. One is still in critical condition, and the other is in fair to improving condition.

Another Walmart employee, Briana Tyler, has said Bing appeared to fire at random.

“He was just shooting all throughout the room. It didn’t matter who he hit,” Tyler told the AP Wednesday.

Six people also were wounded in the shooting, which happened just after 10 p.m. as shoppers were stocking up ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. Police said they believe about 50 people were in the store at the time.

Bing was identified as an overnight team leader who had been a Walmart employee since 2010. Police said he had one handgun and several magazines of ammunition.

Tyler said the overnight stocking team of 15 to 20 people had just gathered in the break room to go over the morning plan. Another team leader had begun speaking when Bing entered the room and opened fire, Tyler and Wiczewski said.

Tyler, who started working at Walmart two months ago and had worked with Bing just a night earlier, said she never had a negative encounter with him, but others told her he was “the manager to look out for.” She said Bing had a history of writing up people for no reason.

The attack was the second major shooting in Virginia this month. Three University of Virginia football players were fatally shot on a bus Nov. 13 as they returned from a field trip. Two other students were wounded.

The Walmart shooting also comes days after a person opened fire at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado — killing five and wounding 17. Tuesday night’s shooting brought back memories of another attack at a Walmart in 2019, when a gunman killed 23 at a store in El Paso, Texas.

Wilczewski, who survived Tuesday’s shooting in Virginia, said she tried but could not bring herself to visit a memorial in the store’s parking lot Wednesday.

“I wrote a letter and I wanted to put it out there,” she said. “I wrote to the ones I watched die. And I said that I’m sorry I wasn’t louder. I’m sorry you couldn’t feel my touch. But you weren’t alone.”

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Walmart shooter left ‘death note,’ bought gun day of killing

The post Walmart shooter left ‘death note,’ bought gun day of killing appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

Authorities said a man named as a person of interest in the shooting was taken into police custody Monday evening after an hourslong manhunt in and around Highland Park, an affluent community of about 30,000 on Chicago’s north shore.

The July 4 shooting was just the latest to shatter the rituals of American life. Schools, churches, grocery stores and now community parades have all become killing grounds in recent months. This time, the bloodshed came as the nation tried to find cause to celebrate its founding and the bonds that still hold it together.

“It definitely hits a lot harder when it’s not only your hometown but it’s also right in front of you,” resident Ron Tuazon said as he and a friend returned to the parade route Monday evening to retrieve chairs, blankets and a child’s bike that he and his family abandoned when the shooting began.

“It’s commonplace now,” Tuazon said of what he called yet another American atrocity. “We don’t blink anymore. Until laws change, it’s going to be more of the same.”

The shooting occurred at a spot on the parade route where many residents had staked out prime viewing points early in the day for the annual celebration. Dozens of fired bullets sent hundreds of parade-goers — some visibly bloodied — fleeing. They left a trail of abandoned items that showed everyday life suddenly, violently disrupted: A half-eaten bag of potato chips; a box of chocolate cookies spilled onto the grass; a child’s Chicago Cubs cap.

“There’s no safe place,” said Highland Park resident Barbara Harte, 73, who had stayed away from the parade fearing a mass shooting, but later ventured from her home.

Highland Park Police Chief Lou Jogmen said a police officer pulled over Robert E. Crimo III about five miles north of the shooting scene, several hours after police released the man’s photo and an image of his silver Honda Fit, and warned the public that he was likely armed and dangerous. Authorities initially said he was 22, but an FBI bulletin and Crimo’s social media said he was 21.

Police declined to immediately identify Crimo as a suspect but said identifying him as a person of interest, sharing his name and other information publicly was a serious step.

Lake County Major Crime Task Force spokesman Christopher Covelli said at a news conference “several of the deceased victims” died at the scene and one was taken to a hospital and died there. Police have not released details about the victims or wounded.

Lake County Coroner Jennifer Banek said the five people killed at the parade were adults, but didn’t have information on the sixth victim who was taken to a hospital and died there. One of those killed was a Mexican national, Roberto Velasco, Mexico’s director for North American affairs, said on Twitter Monday. He said two other Mexicans were wounded.

NorthShore University Health Center received 26 patients after the attack. All but one had gunshot wounds, said Dr. Brigham Temple, medical director of emergency preparedness. Their ages ranged from 8 to 85, and Temple estimated that four or five patients were children.

Temple said 19 of them were treated and discharged. Others were transferred to other hospitals, while two patients, in stable condition, remained at the Highland Park hospital.

“It is devastating that a celebration of America was ripped apart by our uniquely American plague,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said at a news conference.

“I’m furious because it does not have to be this way… while we celebrate the Fourth of July just once a year, mass shootings have become a weekly — yes, weekly — American tradition.”

The shooter opened fire around 10:15 a.m., when the parade was about three-quarters through, authorities said.

Highland Park Police Commander Chris O’Neill, the incident commander on scene, said the gunman apparently used a “high-powered rifle” to fire from a spot atop a commercial building where he was “very difficult to see.” He said the rifle was recovered at the scene. Police also found a ladder attached to the building.

“Very random, very intentional and a very sad day,” Covelli said.

President Joe Biden on Monday said he and first lady Jill Biden were “shocked by the senseless gun violence that has yet again brought grief to an American community on this Independence Day.”

Biden signed the widest-ranging gun violence bill passed by Congress in decades, a compromise that showed at once both progress on a long-intractable issue and the deep-seated partisan divide that persists.

As a word of an arrest spread, residents who had hunkered in homes began venturing outside, some walking toward where the shooting occurred. Several people stood and stared at the scene, with abandoned picnic blankets, hundreds of lawn chairs and backpacks still where they were when the shooting began.

Police believe there was only one shooter but warned that he should still be considered armed and dangerous. Several nearby cities canceled events including parades and fireworks, some of them noting that the Highland Park shooter was still at large. The Chicago White Sox also announced on Twitter that a planned post-game fireworks show is canceled due to the shooting.

More than 100 law enforcement officers were called to the parade scene or dispatched to find the suspected shooter.

More than a dozen police officers on Monday surrounded a home listed as an address for Crimo in Highland Park. Some officers held rifles as they fixed their eyes on the home. Police blockaded roads leading to the home in a tree-lined neighborhood near a golf course, allowing only select law enforcement cars through a tight outer perimeter.

Crimo, who goes by the name Bobby, was an aspiring rapper with the stage name Awake the Rapper, posting on social media dozens videos and songs, some ominous and violent.

In one animated video since taken down by YouTube, Crimo raps about armies “walking in darkness” as a drawing appears of a man pointing a rifle, a body on the ground and another figure with hands up in the distance. A later frame shows a close-up of a chest with blood pouring out and another of police cars arriving as the shooter holds his hands up.

In another video, in which Crimo appears in a classroom wearing a black bicycle helmet, he says he is “like a sleepwalker… I know what I have to do,” then adds, “Everything has led up to this. Nothing can stop me, even myself.”

Crimo’s father, Bob, a longtime deli owner, ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Highland Park in 2019, calling himself “a person for the people.”

Highland Park is a close-knit community of about 30,000 people located on the shores of Lake Michigan just north of Chicago, with mansions and sprawling lakeside estates that have long drawn the rich and sometimes famous, including NBA legend Michael Jordan, who lived in the city for years when he played for the Chicago Bulls. John Hughes filmed parts of several movies in the city, including “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Sixteen Candles” and “Weird Science.”

Ominous signs of a joyous event suddenly turned to horror filled both sides of Central Avenue where the shooting occurred. Dozens of baby strollers — some bearing American flags, abandoned children’s bikes and a helmet bedecked with images of Cinderella were left behind. Blankets, lawn chairs, coffees and water bottles were knocked over as people fled.

Gina Troiani and her son were lined up with his daycare class ready to walk onto the parade route when she heard a loud sound that she believed was fireworks — until she heard people yell about a shooter. In a video that Troiani shot on her phone, some of the kids are visibly startled at the loud noise, and they scramble to the side of the road as a siren wails nearby.

“We just start running in the opposite direction,” she told The Associated Press.

Her 5-year-old son was riding his bike decorated with red and blue curled ribbons. He and other children in the group held small American flags. The city said on its website that the festivities were to include a children’s bike and pet parade.

Troiani said she pushed her son’s bike, running through the neighborhood to get back to their car.

“It was just sort of chaos,” she said. “There were people that got separated from their families, looking for them. Others just dropped their wagons, grabbed their kids and started running.”

Debbie Glickman, a Highland Park resident, said she was on a parade float with coworkers and the group was preparing to turn onto the main route when she saw people running from the area.

“People started saying: ‘There’s a shooter, there’s a shooter, there’s a shooter,’” Glickman told the AP. “So we just ran. We just ran. It’s like mass chaos down there.”

She didn’t hear any noises or see anyone who appeared to be injured.

“I’m so freaked out,” she said. “It’s just so sad.”

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6 dead, 30 hurt in shooting at Chicago-area July 4 parade

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Past shootings targeted worshippers during a Sunday sermon, shoppers at a Walmart, students on a high school campus, and drivers on a highway. Among the latest victims were 19 children and two teachers in the small town of Uvalde, west of San Antonio, where on Tuesday a gunman opened fire inside an elementary school in the nation’s deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade.

Each of those tragedies in Texas — which resulted in more than 85 dead in all — occurred in the last five years.

But as the horror in Uvalde plunges the U.S. into another debate over gun violence, Texas and the state’s Republican-controlled government have by now demonstrated what is likely to happen next: virtually nothing that would restrict gun access.

Lawmakers are unlikely to adopt any significant new limits on guns. Last year, gun laws were actually loosened after a gunman at a Walmart in El Paso killed 23 people in a racist 2019 attack that targeted Hispanics.

“I can’t wrap my head around it,” said state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district includes Uvalde. “It’s disturbing to me as a policymaker that we have been able to do little other than create greater access to these militarized weapons to just about anyone who would want them.”

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott identified the gunman as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos. The gunman was killed by authorities.

The cycle in Texas — a mass shooting followed by few if any new restrictions on guns — mirrors GOP efforts to block stricter laws in Congress and the ensuring outrage from Democrats and supporters of tougher gun control.

President Joe Biden angrily made a renewed push Tuesday evening after the tragedy in Uvalde. “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” he asked in an address from the White House.

The shooting in Texas happened days before the National Rifle Association is set to hold its annual meeting in Houston, where Abbott and other Republican leaders are scheduled to speak.

Even as Biden’s party has slim control of Congress, gun violence bills have stalled in the face of Republican opposition in the Senate. Last year, the House passed two bills to expand background checks on firearms purchases, but both languished in the 50-50 Senate where Democrats need at least 10 Republican votes to overcome objections from a filibuster.

“It sort of centers around the issue of mental health. It seems like there’s consensus in that area,” No. 2 Senate GOP leader John Thune said about how Congress should respond to the Uvalde shooting. He did not specify what that would be.

In Texas, any changes to gun access would not come until lawmakers return to the Capitol in 2023. In the past, calls for action have faded.

Abbott, who is up for reelection in November, said the shooting in Uvalde was carried out “horrifically, incomprehensibly” on children. He did not immediately say how or whether Texas would respond to this latest mass shooting on a policy level, but since he became governor in 2015, the state has only gotten more relaxed when it comes to gun laws.

Exactly one year before the Uvalde shooting, the GOP-controlled Legislature voted to remove one of the last major gun restrictions in Texas: required licenses, background checks, and training for the nearly 1.6 million registered handgun owners in the state at the time.

Abbott signed the measure, which came at the end of what was the Texas Legislature’s first chance to act after the Walmart attack.

A year later, a man went on a highway shooting rampage in the West Texas oil patch that left seven people dead, spraying bullets into passing cars and shopping plazas and killing a U.S. Postal Service employee while hijacking her mail truck.

Following a shooting at Santa Fe High School in 2018 that killed 10 people near Houston, Abbott signaled support for so-called red flag laws, which restrict gun access for people deemed dangerous to themselves or others. But he later retreated amid pushback from gun-rights supporters.

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who won the GOP nomination for a third term Tuesday, told Fox News after the Uvalde shooting that the best response would be training teachers and “hardening” schools.

Democrat state Rep. Joe Moody recalled the hope he felt that the Walmart shooting in his border city might finally lead to reforms.

“And the only answer you get when we go to the Capitol is, ‘More guns, less restrictions,‘” Moody said. “That’s it.’”

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School massacre continues Texas’ grim run of mass shootings

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In a flash, the ordinariness of their day was broken at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, wherein and around the supermarket’s aisles, a symbol of the mundane was transformed into a scene of mass murder.

Carts lay abandoned. Bodies littered the tile floor. Police radios crackled with calls for help.

Investigators will try, for days to come, to piece together the massacre that killed 10 people, all Black and apparently hunted for the color of their skin.

Those who loved them are left with their memories of the lost, who suffered death amid the simple task of buying groceries.

“These people were just shopping,” said Steve Carlson, 29, mourning his 72-year-old neighbor Katherine Massey, who checked in often, giving him gifts on his birthday and at Christmas, and pressing money into his hand when he helped with yardwork. “They went to go get food to feed their families.”

One came from volunteering at a food bank. Another had been tending to her husband at his nursing home. Most were in their 50s and beyond, and were destined for more, even if just the dinner they planned to make.

Shonnell Harris, a manager at the store, was stocking shelves when she heard the first of what she figured must have been more than 70 shots. She ran for the back door, stumbling a few times along the way. She wondered where her daughter, a grocery clerk, was, and went around to the front of the store.

She saw someone being shot, she said, and a man who looked like he was dressed for the Army.

“Like a nightmare,” Harris told The Buffalo News, shaken but grateful to have found her daughter safe.

The grisly scene was broadcast online by the gunman, a video notable not just for the cold-bloodedness of the killings, but how fast they unfolded. In the deafening rat-a-tat of gunfire, 10 voices were silenced, their stories left for others to recite.

Of a woman whose niece swore she was “the apple of God’s eye.” Of a longtime policeman who became a guard at the store and whose son knew he died a hero. Of an ace baker who’d give you the shirt off her back.

Garnell Whitfield Jr., whose 86-year-old mother Ruth Whitfield was killed in the attack, said she had come to Tops after her daily ritual of visiting her husband of 68 years in his nursing home. In so many ways, for so many years, Whitfield Jr. said his mother had devoted her life to those she loved.

“That day was like every other day for my mom,” he said Monday as he pondered how to break the news to his father.

Heyward Patterson, a 67-year-old deacon at State Tabernacle Church of God in Christ, was similarly doing the things he’d long been known for. He had just come from helping at his church’s soup kitchen and now was at Tops, volunteering in the community jitney service that shuttles people without a ride to and from the store.

Pastor Russell Bell of the Tabernacle Church said he believed Patterson had been loading someone’s groceries into his trunk when the shots took him down.

“Anywhere he was, he was encouraging people to be the best that they could be,” Bell said.

As customers arrived at Tops ahead of the shooting, their purpose was clear.

Roberta Drury, 32, was in search of something for dinner. Andre Mackneil, 53, came to pick up a cake for his son’s third birthday. Celestine Chaney, 65, needed some shortcake to go with the strawberries she sliced.

For some in the store, it was likely a trip of necessity, to fill an emptied fridge or get a missing ingredient. For Chaney, though, it was more than some stubborn chore. Stores were her passion.

Her 48-year-old son, Wayne Jones, said he’d typically take his mother shopping each week, stopping at grocery store after grocery store in search of the best deals, with the occasional stop for a hot dog or McDonald’s.

“We’d hit four or five stores looking for a deal,” he laughed even as his face was wet with tears.

On Saturday, it was Chaney’s older sister, JoAnn Daniels, 74, who accompanied her shopping, and the two sisters made a meandering trip through Tops’ aisles. Chaney knew she needed shortcakes, but flitting around the store, she decided she wanted to make shrimp salad, too, giggling with her sister as they filled the cart. She surveyed the roast beef and complained about the price of rolls before taking interest in chicken legs.

“You done?” she finally asked her sister, who said she was.

Pops suddenly ricocheted. The sisters thought they were firecrackers, but others started running. They went to follow, but Chaney was knocked down. Daniels said she reached to help, but her sister said she was fine.

“I’m coming,” Daniels said her sister assured. She thought Chaney was behind her.

It would be hours before she learned the truth, when her nephew saw the video of the shooting: Her baby sister, who had survived breast cancer and three surgeries for aneurysms, died on a trip to the grocery store.

Wayne Jones, holds his son Donell, while speaking during an interview with The Associated Press about his mother Celestine Chaney, who was killed in Saturday’s shooting at a supermarket, in Buffalo, N.Y., Monday, May 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

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‘Like every other day’: 10 lives lost on a trip to the store

The post ‘Like every other day’: 10 lives lost on a trip to the store appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.