The mass shooting on July 4, 2022, left seven people dead and more than 40 injured.
Thanks to Keely Roberts
Cooper Roberts
It’s been two years since a gunman opened fire during a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park.
The mass shooting on July 4, 2022, left seven people dead and more than 40 injured.
Among the wounded were Keely Roberts and her son Cooper, then 8 years old. Cooper was struck in the back by a bullet that exited his chest and damaged his aorta, liver, esophagus and spinal cord. Cooper was paralyzed from the waist down.
“This Fourth of July is the 730th [day] “The day we remember the total destruction of our lives,” Roberts said during a virtual press conference on Wednesday, July 3.
“It’s been 730 days since Cooper woke up, jumped out of bed and ran downstairs, ready for his first breakfast of the day. … That family that walked to the parade that horrible day, they’re gone. They don’t exist anymore.”
“Every single one of us lost our lives because of the shooter and because of this act of senseless violence,” Roberts said. “This was a murderous attack on all of us. No American life was left unscathed that day.”
Related: A Mother’s Powerful Story of Her Son’s Fight for His Life After the Highland Park Mass Shooting
Roberts said she has been amazed by Cooper’s ability to stay positive over the past two years. “He’s really still the same Cooper in terms of his personality, his outlook on life, his love for everything,” she said. “He loves everyone and everything.”
But, she said, “This is an incredibly difficult road that he’s on, and I think this summer, as positive and optimistic as he is, I think it’s been a difficult summer to adjust to. He’s 10 years old now. He’s a big boy, and I think he’s really aware of what he’s lost.”
Suspect reverses course, pleads not guilty
Roberts was in court last week when alleged shooter Robert Crimo III, who was expected to plead guilty, changed his mind and pleaded not guilty.
What happened, she said, was “yet another example of the re-victimization of victims, the continued infliction of extreme suffering on innocent people who suffer every day in unimaginable ways.”
Roberts said she almost didn’t go to the hearing because “it’s literally impossible to describe what it’s like to have a complete stranger try to kill you and your family.”
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According to CNN, the suspect had initially pleaded guilty to seven counts of murder and 48 counts of aggravated assault, as well as a life sentence. He has been charged with 21 counts of first-degree murder, 48 counts of attempted murder, and 48 counts of aggravated assault with a firearm.
According to CNN, his trial is now scheduled for February 25, 2025.
Related: A Former Teacher, a Doting Grandfather: What We Know About the Highland Park Shooting Victims
“I’ve come to the conclusion that there will be no real closure for us,” she said. “The wound is too big. It’s too deep. But what there will be is justice. There’s just nothing healing, restorative or comforting about justice delayed, especially justice that’s delayed in a way that feels cruel.”
Family may never go to the parade again
Roberts said she and her family have been overwhelmed by the support they have received over the past two years.
“Every day we are blessed by the love and generosity of neighbors, strangers, people within our community, people outside our country, around the world,” she said. “We have received messages of love and support. And it has been a very humbling experience as a parent — to feel like you go from a life where you were taking care of your family, where you thought if your kids needed something, you would take care of it. If your family needed something, you could handle it — to a place where you don’t have all the answers, you don’t have all the resources that you need. It’s humbling. And we’ve been so picked up in love by everyone that it really has become a story about love.”
Roberts said she and her family will not attend this year’s Fourth of July parade, which will be held for the first time since the shooting.
“Honestly, I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to go to the parade again,” she said.
This year, the family wants to spend the holidays at a lake in Wisconsin.
“We’ll just focus on how much we owe [for]that my family is still intact,” she said. “There are families who have lost loved ones in this shooting, and our hearts break for them. We will grieve with those families every step of the way.”
The suspect was standing on a rooftop overlooking the parade route when he fired more than 70 rounds from a high-powered rifle, CNN reported.
Katherine Goldstein, 64; Irina McCarthy, 35; Kevin McCarthy, 37; Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63; Stephen Straus, 88; Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78; and Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, were killed in the shooting.
The suspect’s father, Robert Crimo Jr., pleaded guilty last year to reckless endangerment for allegedly helping his son obtain a gun owner’s identification card, ABC News reported.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the Roberts family.
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