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A trial begins today for the man accused of opening fire on a July Fourth parade near Chicago in 2022. The mass shooting happened in Highland Park, Illinois. Seven people were killed. Dozens more were wounded. Here's Anna Savchenko with member station WBEZ.
ANNA SAVCHENKO, BYLINE: The July Fourth parade had just started when a gunman fired more than 80 rounds into the crowd from a nearby rooftop. Diego Hernandez was at work, but his family was at the parade. When the shooting started, his young daughter called him. Here's what Hernandez said that day.
DIEGO HERNANDEZ: She called me, and I'm hearing the shots through the phone. I'm just telling her to duck for cover and stay with her aunties and not to be looking around, not to - you know, my daughter's 9 years old. I don't want her seeing bodies on the floor, things that will traumatize a 9-year-old, you know?
SAVCHENKO: Hernandez said his granddad was among the dead, but that he was still thankful for those who lived.
HERNANDEZ: Like, don't get me wrong. It's heartbreaking. We did lose a family member. But like I said, it could have been worse. It could have been multiple - could have been everybody.
SAVCHENKO: Adam Sherman was also at the parade with his family. He says he still struggles with the memories of that day. Little things trigger him, like shooting scenes on TV or when he visits his sister, who lives in Highland Park, and he passes by the spot where the shooting happened.
ADAM SHERMAN: It's always that, like, feeling of, like, oh, that happened here.
SAVCHENKO: Along with the seven people who lost their lives there, 48 others were injured, including a boy who was 8. He was shot in the back. He's now paralyzed from the waist down. A man named Robert Crimo III was arrested that same day, and prosecutors say he confessed to the shooting while in custody. Crimo was 21 at the time, and he didn't have a criminal record before the arrest. But in 2019, police went to his family's home and seized a collection of knives after a relative said Crimo had threatened to, quote, "kill everyone."
Three months after that incident, Crimo successfully applied for a card required to own a gun. He went on to legally buy several guns, including the semi-automatic rifle he allegedly used in the shooting. Now Crimo is facing more than a hundred felony counts, including seven counts of first-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
DOUG GODFREY: In all reality, he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison.
SAVCHENKO: Doug Godfrey, a professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, has been following Crimo's case. And he thinks the evidence against Crimo is overwhelming.
GODFREY: If you look at it from the defense angle, you have nothing to try. You know, he's made statements. He had the weapon. The prosecutor will have no problems meeting their burden.
SAVCHENKO: If convicted, Crimo faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Sherman, the shooting survivor, says that's the outcome he wants to see.
SHERMAN: Justice would look like him having a punishment that fits this terrible crime and that he does not experience joy ever again.
SAVCHENKO: A judge ruled that all 48 of the injured victims will be allowed inside the courtroom, even though many of them may be called as witnesses. Crimo himself has skipped several court appearances in the run-up to the trial. And the judge warned him last week - if he doesn't appear in court on Monday, the trial will go on without him.
For NPR News, I'm Anna Savchenko in Chicago.
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