Fourth of July parade shooting leaves another community traumatized – and transformed
HIGHLAND Park, Ill. – Natalie Lorentz flung herself onto her three small children as a couple to her right were fatally shot and a woman to her left was grazed by a bullet.
When the gunman stopped to reload, Lorentz and her husband grabbed their kids and fled. She told her children – ages 5, 3 and almost 2 – that they had to run because the fireworks got out of control.
"How do you tell a 5-year-old someone’s trying to shoot and kill you right now?" she said nearly a week after seven people died and dozens were injured at the Fourth of July parade in this Chicago suburb.
Lorentz, 34, plays the moment over and over in her mind. She jumps awake each morning in a panic. She endures cycles of terror and numbness while trying to get her kids up, dressed and eating three meals a day.
Like the residents of many other American cities and towns before them – Uvalde, Texas; Buffalo, New York; Tulsa, Oklahoma – residents of Highland Park and the greater North Shore community are embarking on the long journey of reckoning with the aftermath of a mass shooting.
"Everybody’s at a different stage, and it kind of feels like it’s been a year, even though it’s been a few days," said Lara Chaimson, 39, who fled the parade with her husband and two young daughters.
Some residents are just beginning to process their trauma while trying to figure out how to talk to their kids about what happened. Some are recovering in a hospital or burying loved ones. Others are helping their neighbors and advocating for gun control.
"I'm angry now," said Chaimson, who will go with Lorentz and others to the nation's capital this week to meet with lawmakers. "I'm ready to not let this pass and happen to another town. It’s time for my voice to be heard."
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Remnants of the massacre remained strewn throughout downtown Highland Park on Friday. Discarded lawn chairs, shoes and water bottles lay in a row on the grass outside City Hall, awaiting pickup. Police taped off blocks of the crime scene, where FBI agents slowly processed evidence.
Lorentz said Friday her bike was still locked outside the town's beloved Walker Bros. Original Pancake House, where her youngest ate Mini Mouse pancakes the morning of the attack. Terrified paradegoers took shelter inside the restaurant.
Some residents told USA TODAY they can't move forward until downtown opens. When the police and media trucks leave, many wonder, what will normal look like?
"Healing is a tough question. I don't know that we'll ever be the same," said Steve Sanderman, 51, who has lived in the town for most of his life and graduated from Highland Park High School.
Sanderman and hundreds of others congregated downtown a day after the shooting to pay their respects and share space with their community. Families, friends and neighbors placed flowers, hugged, cried and shared stories of where they were that day.
Several said they keep looking back at old photos and videos of prior parades. Highland Park native Daniel Goldberg, 50, and his son, Levi, 18, said they rewatch videos from 2013, when Levi and his brothers posed as the Beatles and won "Best Original Float."
"I kept thinking I was going to see everyone scattering when I was watching you guys in that video," said Goldberg, who choked up and looked at his son.
Spencer Sabath, Alivia Fisher and Parker Zweiback, all 17, brought a carton of water bottles and candles to the vigil. The three students said they rallied at the same spot three years ago to call for gun control, among other measures.
"I have a lot of anger that I'm trying to turn into love," Sabath said. "It's so frustrating. We can't vote. There's nothing we can do. We just sit here as these events pass us by and destroy our lives again and again."
As an eighth grader, Sabath made a documentary about the danger of mass shootings in schools. The film, "Half Mast," premiered at the local Landmark movie theater, and Sabath's family walked over to the pancake house afterward for a celebratory dinner.
"On that walking path, seven people were killed," Sabath said Tuesday as he stood before a flag at half-staff. "Nothing has changed."
For Kevin Yoo, the path through downtown Highland Park isn't just a parade route: It's his bus route.
Yoo, who lives in Northbrook, drove kids to and from Red Oak Elementary School last year. He said he used to park his bus on Second Avenue, near where the shooting happened.
Yoo said he visited the scene Tuesday because he takes the attack personally: These kids are his kids, and it's his job to protect them, he said.
"Carrying weapons and purchasing weapons is very difficult for me to understand," said Yoo, who moved from South Korea five years ago.
Nela Srenik, 85, said she believes the shooting will not change her community. Srenik, who has lived in Highland Park for 30 years but is originally from Minsk, Belarus, was walking to the parade when people fleeing the scene told her to turn back.
She was trying to wrap her head around the war in Ukraine. Now she's processing an attack on her own home, too.
"I'm very upset," she said Tuesday as she held her phone in an American flag-themed case. Srenik said her community is focused on love and openness. "I will try to do what I can do."
'I'm so angry that my kids had to experience this'
Many residents said they're trying to work through their emotions while shielding their children as much as possible.
Chaimson said her family was standing near a float when the shooting broke out a block away. Though her daughters, 6 and 8, didn't see anything violent, they heard the shots and saw people running from the scene.
"It sounded, the first round, like firecrackers. But my daughter, my 8-and-a-half-year-old, she looked at me, and she said, is it a shooter?" Chaimson recalled. "That’s the thing that haunts me. She was prepared that that was a possibility."
Chaimson said her family took shelter at her parents' house. Her older daughter asked questions about the attack. Her younger daughter started sucking her thumb.
"I was just trying to distract my girls and play games," said Chaimson, who blew bubbles and played Hangman with her daughters. "I tried to be the best actress I could that day."
Chaimson said her kids were startled by the sound of fireworks and a storm that night. She got them up and ready for camp the next day to stick to their routine.
Lorentz, a crisis worker at NorthShore University Health System, said her 3-year-old said he never wants to go to a parade again. Her 5-year-old asked questions about what happened to his stuffed animal, Baby Elephant, left behind in the chaos.
"I’m so angry that my kids had to experience this," she said.
Lorentz said her eldest has seen a therapist twice. Her husband took time off work. Her mom, who tripped and fell amid the gunfire, is trying to "put one foot in front of the other."
Lorentz said she keeps thinking about a 2-year-old boy orphaned in the shooting, who had shared a blanket with her kids. She wonders how close she came to losing her children, husband or mother.
"We will never be the same," she said. "It's not so much losing a part of myself. It’s gaining something that I didn’t want that I have to carry with me now."
While she struggles to fall asleep at night, Lorentz said, she sees emails flood her inbox into the early morning from neighbors planning next steps.
They came for the American dream. On the Fourth of July, they survived an American shooting.
'People are tired of thoughts and prayers'
As residents walked away from the vigil Tuesday evening, one man handed out "Highland Park Strong" T-shirts, 36 hours after the massacre. Several people put the shirts on. Others asked how they could help. A young girl offered to share links to lists of resources.
"The way that we've been able to support each other after this tragedy has been really inspiring to me and has given me a lot of hope amid a really dark time," said resident Rachel Jacoby, 25.
Jacoby organized an interfaith vigil Tuesday and a community rally Saturday. She encouraged people to make sure they're registered to vote and shared an online petition for an Illinois ban on weapons.
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Three weeks before the shooting, she organized a march of 500 people through downtown Highland Park in the wake of the shootings in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas; and Tulsa, Oklahoma. On July 4, people died on the sidewalk where they'd marched.
Jacoby said she's overwhelmed but heartened by the efforts of her neighbors. Colorful chalk messages of love and hope cover sidewalks. Residents coordinate meal drop-offs for survivors and families. Restaurants offer free food. Highland Park High School has transformed into a trauma center.
One group plans to travel to Washington on Tuesday to speak with lawmakers. A "March Fourth" rally is planned at the U.S. Capitol the next day to call for nationwide background checks and restrictions on rifles.
"I'm trying to put my energy into that – to not let this be like, oh, our news cycle’s ending and then it's on to the next mass shooting," said Lorentz, who plans to attend the meetings but is avoiding crowds. "I can’t raise my kids in this country if this is how it’s going to be. It’s not OK. It’s not living in fear – it’s living in reality."
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Rabbi Adam Chalom, 46, of the Kol Hadash Humanistic Congregation in neighboring Deerfield, said his community has reflected on having the courage to go back to everyday life.
"We're going to go back to that intersection. We're going to eat ice cream at the Dairy Queen. We have to go back to life, and we don't want to let the person who is imposing terror win by forcing us to stop living," he said.
Chalom and his wife were at the parade, walking with the Highland Park Community Foundation, behind the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band, when the shots were fired.
On Wednesday night, Chalom held a Zoom listening session with his congregation to discuss how members were feeling and what comes next. At the end of the session, the group sang its own version of an old Jewish song.
“The traditional song is ‘oseh shalom,’ He will make peace. And we sing, ‘na’aseh shalom,’ we will make peace,” Chalom said. “People are tired of thoughts and prayers. And praying without action is hoping. But acting is what really makes a difference in the world.”
Contact reporter Grace Hauck via email at ghauck@usatoday.com or on Twitter at @grace_hauck.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Highland Park shooting leaves another community grappling with future
