Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering, who was present during the Fourth of July mass shooting, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary and called for a federal ban on “assault weapons.”
Rotering started her testimony by recognizing the first responders who responded to the shooting.
“They miraculously caught the shooter within hours and they are what true American heroes look like,” Rotering said.
The mayor said Robert Crimo, the alleged gunman, was on the rooftop of a building just to her right and was “preparing to traumatize my hometown forever with an assault weapon.”
Rotering heard Crimo firing his semi-automatic rifle onto the parade and saw marching band members running.
“Grandparents were running for cover, toddlers were being placed in dumpsters for safety and the bodies of those who were hit were scattered on the ground,” Rotering said.
The seven people killed were identified as Katherine Goldstein, 64, of Highland Park; Irina McCarthy, 35, of Highland Park; Kevin McCarthy, 37, of Highland Park; Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63, of Highland Park; Stephen Straus, 88, of Highland Park; and Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78, of Morelos, Mexico; and Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, of Waukegan.
Rotering told senate members the stories of some of the victims, like the McCarthy and Roberts families.
“Less than a minute is all it took for a person with an assault weapon to shoot 83 rounds into a crowd, forever changing so many lives. And the most disturbing part? This is the norm in our country,” Rotering said.
Rotering urged Congress to enact a federal ban on “assault weapons.”
“You must federally ban assault weapons and large capacity magazines. Today is the day to start saving lives,” Rotering said.