Week after July 4 parade shooting, a moment of silence

By AP 11 July 2022, 9:30 pm

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The Alvarez-Sanchez family, center, join local residents for a two-minute moment of silence at 10:14 a.m. at a memorial on July 11, 2022, in Highland Park, Illinois, to the seven people who lost their lives during the town's Fourth of July parade. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

HIGHLAND PARK, Illinois — One week after a shooting at a Fourth of July parade that left seven dead, the Chicago suburb of Highland Park holds a moment of silence to mark the exact time police say the first shot was fired.

More than 100 people gather and hug each other in a downtown plaza for a tribute that begins at 10:14 a.m. and lasts longer than the planned two minutes. Churches in the community along Lake Michigan north of Chicago toll their bells seven times.

The event is held not far from the building along the parade route where a gunman fired dozens of shots from its roof. A huge memorial of flowers, together with chairs holding photographs of the seven victims is now there.

The tribute comes a day after the reopening of restaurants and small shops in the business district where the shooting occurred, and which had been blocked off with crime scene tape since the shooting.

Robert E. Crimo III, 21, has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder and, according to prosecutors, will face several counts of attempted murder and other charges. More than 30 people were wounded in the attack. Authorities have said that Crimo, of neighboring Highwood, legally purchased five weapons and planned the attack for weeks.