The names of some of the six people murdered at the Highland Park Fourth of July parade have started to emerge as the victims’ families and friends have spoken out about their agony in the aftermath of the massacre.
Among those killed when a rooftop gunman opened fire at the families assembled below was Jacki Sundheim, a congregant at the North Shore Congregation Israel in neighboring Glencoe, the synagogue announced Monday. “There are no words sufficient to express the depth of our grief for Jacki’s death and sympathy for her family and loved ones,” the synagogue wrote in an email to congregants. “Jacki’s work, kindness and warmth touched us all, from her teaching at the Gates of Learning Preschool to guiding innumerable among us through life’s moments of joy and sorrow, all of this with tireless dedication,” it continued, adding that Jacki was survived by her husband and daughter.
A Mexican great-grandfather visiting his family in Illinois was also among the dead. Nicolás Toledo, 78, was sitting on his walker and surrounded by his family when he was hit Monday by the sniper.
“We all threw ourselves to the ground,” his daughter, Josefina Toledo, told The Daily Beast after the shooting. “My dad, since it’s difficult for him to walk… he was sitting on his walker and he was hit in his back and in his head.” The father of eight was killed instantly at the event, which his family attended every year as a tradition. Josefina said one of her nieces’ boyfriends was also one of the dozens injured in the attack—he was in a stable condition on Monday but was facing surgery to remove a bullet from near his lungs. “There isn’t a safe place anymore,” Josefina added.
It appears they weren’t the only family in which multiple relatives were shot. Sharing a link to a medical bill fundraiser on Tuesday morning, the Chicago Teachers Union said William Dever Elementary School teacher Zoe Kolpack and her husband, named elsewhere as Stephen Kolpack, were wounded in the attack. “They were with their two children, who were unharmed,” the tweet read. The fundraiser’s creator, who called Zoe her “best friend,” added that the teacher’s father and brother-in-law were also hit. “They are all in the hospital undergoing various surgeries, which will seriously impact these families financially,” the fundraiser description reads. “I do not want this to be another burden on them as they will have many obstacles to go through in the months ahead.”
As well as Sundheim and Toledo, four other deceased are yet to be identified. Doctors who treated the dozens of wounded people at local hospitals said the victims ranged in age between 8 and 85. David Baum, a local physician who attended the parade with his family, saw some of the devastating wounds firsthand when the shooting stopped.
“I saw horrific, devastating injuries, the kind that you normally see in a war,” Baum told The Daily Beast on Monday, adding that the bodies of those killed “were literally blown up by those bullets.”
Local law enforcement detained 22-year-old Robert “Bobby” Crimo around seven hours after the carnage began, calling him a person of interest in connection with the shooting. Disturbing videos posted on the Illinois local’s social-media channels—where Crimo used the alias Awake the Rapper—are riddled with violent images and mass-shooting fantasy, including an animation in which a gunman is killed by cops.
NBC 5 reports that Crimo was identified by authorities thanks to a rapid trace by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms using DNA collected from a rifle found at the scene of the attack. The outlet also claims that, at some point on the day of the shooting, Crimo was dressed as a woman, though it wasn’t clear if this was still the case when he was taken into custody.
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