CHICAGO (AP) — As many as 15 people, including three children, were injured in a drive-by shooting on Halloween night that sent shots flying into a crowd along a Chicago street corner, police said.

Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said the three juvenile victims are a 3-year-old, an 11-year-old and a 13-year-old. The others wounded by gunfire Monday night are adults ranging in age from their 30s to their 50s.

In addition, police said a woman fleeing from the shooting scene was struck by a vehicle as she crossed traffic. She was hospitalized in fair condition.

The Chicago Fire Department said it sent at least 10 ambulances to the scene in Chicago’s Garfield Park neighborhood. Brown said the victims’ conditions range from non-life threatening injuries to critical condition. No fatalities were immediately reported and police were waiting to interview the shooting victims after they received medical treatment.

Brown said the drive-by shooting happened around 9:30 p.m. and was over in a matter of seconds. It was captured on police surveillance video, which investigators are reviewing.

Preliminary information indicates there were at least two shooters seen on the video, firing indiscriminately into the crowd.

Community activist Andrew Holmes said the children shot during the incident are “just young.”

“They’re putting on an outfit just to enjoy the evening and then you got a clown that goes and discharges that weapon, bringing great bodily harm to these families,” he told WGN-TV.

Investigators are trying to determine a motive and get a description of the car and those responsible, Brown said. No one was in custody.

Brown said there were no known conflicts at the street corner Monday night. Brown said there were several large groups at the corner, which is a popular gathering spot in the neighborhood. Some were reportedly attending a vigil.

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HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. (AP) — A gunman on a rooftop opened fire on an Independence Day parade in suburban Chicago on Monday, killing at least six people, wounding at least 30 and sending hundreds of marchers, parents with strollers and children on bicycles fleeing in terror, police said.

Authorities said a man named as a person of interest in the shooting was taken into police custody Monday evening after an hourslong manhunt in and around Highland Park, an affluent community of about 30,000 on Chicago’s north shore.

The July 4 shooting was just the latest to shatter the rituals of American life. Schools, churches, grocery stores and now community parades have all become killing grounds in recent months. This time, the bloodshed came as the nation tried to find cause to celebrate its founding and the bonds that still hold it together.

“It definitely hits a lot harder when it’s not only your hometown but it’s also right in front of you,” resident Ron Tuazon said as he and a friend returned to the parade route Monday evening to retrieve chairs, blankets and a child’s bike that he and his family abandoned when the shooting began.

“It’s commonplace now,” Tuazon said of what he called yet another American atrocity. “We don’t blink anymore. Until laws change, it’s going to be more of the same.”

The shooting occurred at a spot on the parade route where many residents had staked out prime viewing points early in the day for the annual celebration. Dozens of fired bullets sent hundreds of parade-goers — some visibly bloodied — fleeing. They left a trail of abandoned items that showed everyday life suddenly, violently disrupted: A half-eaten bag of potato chips; a box of chocolate cookies spilled onto the grass; a child’s Chicago Cubs cap.

“There’s no safe place,” said Highland Park resident Barbara Harte, 73, who had stayed away from the parade fearing a mass shooting, but later ventured from her home.

Highland Park Police Chief Lou Jogmen said a police officer pulled over Robert E. Crimo III about five miles north of the shooting scene, several hours after police released the man’s photo and an image of his silver Honda Fit, and warned the public that he was likely armed and dangerous. Authorities initially said he was 22, but an FBI bulletin and Crimo’s social media said he was 21.

Police declined to immediately identify Crimo as a suspect but said identifying him as a person of interest, sharing his name and other information publicly was a serious step.

Lake County Major Crime Task Force spokesman Christopher Covelli said at a news conference “several of the deceased victims” died at the scene and one was taken to a hospital and died there. Police have not released details about the victims or wounded.

Lake County Coroner Jennifer Banek said the five people killed at the parade were adults, but didn’t have information on the sixth victim who was taken to a hospital and died there. One of those killed was a Mexican national, Roberto Velasco, Mexico’s director for North American affairs, said on Twitter Monday. He said two other Mexicans were wounded.

NorthShore University Health Center received 26 patients after the attack. All but one had gunshot wounds, said Dr. Brigham Temple, medical director of emergency preparedness. Their ages ranged from 8 to 85, and Temple estimated that four or five patients were children.

Temple said 19 of them were treated and discharged. Others were transferred to other hospitals, while two patients, in stable condition, remained at the Highland Park hospital.

“It is devastating that a celebration of America was ripped apart by our uniquely American plague,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said at a news conference.

“I’m furious because it does not have to be this way… while we celebrate the Fourth of July just once a year, mass shootings have become a weekly — yes, weekly — American tradition.”

The shooter opened fire around 10:15 a.m., when the parade was about three-quarters through, authorities said.

Highland Park Police Commander Chris O’Neill, the incident commander on scene, said the gunman apparently used a “high-powered rifle” to fire from a spot atop a commercial building where he was “very difficult to see.” He said the rifle was recovered at the scene. Police also found a ladder attached to the building.

“Very random, very intentional and a very sad day,” Covelli said.

President Joe Biden on Monday said he and first lady Jill Biden were “shocked by the senseless gun violence that has yet again brought grief to an American community on this Independence Day.”

Biden signed the widest-ranging gun violence bill passed by Congress in decades, a compromise that showed at once both progress on a long-intractable issue and the deep-seated partisan divide that persists.

As a word of an arrest spread, residents who had hunkered in homes began venturing outside, some walking toward where the shooting occurred. Several people stood and stared at the scene, with abandoned picnic blankets, hundreds of lawn chairs and backpacks still where they were when the shooting began.

Police believe there was only one shooter but warned that he should still be considered armed and dangerous. Several nearby cities canceled events including parades and fireworks, some of them noting that the Highland Park shooter was still at large. The Chicago White Sox also announced on Twitter that a planned post-game fireworks show is canceled due to the shooting.

More than 100 law enforcement officers were called to the parade scene or dispatched to find the suspected shooter.

More than a dozen police officers on Monday surrounded a home listed as an address for Crimo in Highland Park. Some officers held rifles as they fixed their eyes on the home. Police blockaded roads leading to the home in a tree-lined neighborhood near a golf course, allowing only select law enforcement cars through a tight outer perimeter.

Crimo, who goes by the name Bobby, was an aspiring rapper with the stage name Awake the Rapper, posting on social media dozens videos and songs, some ominous and violent.

In one animated video since taken down by YouTube, Crimo raps about armies “walking in darkness” as a drawing appears of a man pointing a rifle, a body on the ground and another figure with hands up in the distance. A later frame shows a close-up of a chest with blood pouring out and another of police cars arriving as the shooter holds his hands up.

In another video, in which Crimo appears in a classroom wearing a black bicycle helmet, he says he is “like a sleepwalker… I know what I have to do,” then adds, “Everything has led up to this. Nothing can stop me, even myself.”

Crimo’s father, Bob, a longtime deli owner, ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Highland Park in 2019, calling himself “a person for the people.”

Highland Park is a close-knit community of about 30,000 people located on the shores of Lake Michigan just north of Chicago, with mansions and sprawling lakeside estates that have long drawn the rich and sometimes famous, including NBA legend Michael Jordan, who lived in the city for years when he played for the Chicago Bulls. John Hughes filmed parts of several movies in the city, including “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Sixteen Candles” and “Weird Science.”

Ominous signs of a joyous event suddenly turned to horror filled both sides of Central Avenue where the shooting occurred. Dozens of baby strollers — some bearing American flags, abandoned children’s bikes and a helmet bedecked with images of Cinderella were left behind. Blankets, lawn chairs, coffees and water bottles were knocked over as people fled.

Gina Troiani and her son were lined up with his daycare class ready to walk onto the parade route when she heard a loud sound that she believed was fireworks — until she heard people yell about a shooter. In a video that Troiani shot on her phone, some of the kids are visibly startled at the loud noise, and they scramble to the side of the road as a siren wails nearby.

“We just start running in the opposite direction,” she told The Associated Press.

Her 5-year-old son was riding his bike decorated with red and blue curled ribbons. He and other children in the group held small American flags. The city said on its website that the festivities were to include a children’s bike and pet parade.

Troiani said she pushed her son’s bike, running through the neighborhood to get back to their car.

“It was just sort of chaos,” she said. “There were people that got separated from their families, looking for them. Others just dropped their wagons, grabbed their kids and started running.”

Debbie Glickman, a Highland Park resident, said she was on a parade float with coworkers and the group was preparing to turn onto the main route when she saw people running from the area.

“People started saying: ‘There’s a shooter, there’s a shooter, there’s a shooter,’” Glickman told the AP. “So we just ran. We just ran. It’s like mass chaos down there.”

She didn’t hear any noises or see anyone who appeared to be injured.

“I’m so freaked out,” she said. “It’s just so sad.”

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CENTER FOR HEALTH JOURNALISM FELLOWSHIPS POSTS

The results of the drug war in Chicago are clear: people who use drugs keep getting targeted with arrests and the justice system continues to make their lives worse while sticking taxpayers with the bill.

“The Costly Toll of Dead-end Drug Arrests,” a project by the Better Government Association (BGA) and the Chicago Sun-Times, illustrates this institutional failure of Cook County’s criminal justice system.

Our reporting revealed police in Chicago arrest people for possession of small quantities of drugs knowing the charges won’t stick. There’s an unwritten rule in Chicago among judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys that low-level drug cases get tossed out at their earliest stages. We found this practice creates huge problems for people addicted to drugs — especially middle-aged Black men — because they lose jobs, money and freedom.

We started with the data. The BGA had access to 280,000 drug-possession cases over a nearly 20-year period through a consortium of news organizations that created a database called The Circuit.

We scraped those Cook County court records and filled in the holes with other data sources to get a complete picture. Markdown reports and GitHub allowed us to work jointly on the analysis of the data. 

Once we had a large, reliable database, we looked for trends. To get a better understanding of the cases, we examined hundreds of police narratives for low-level drug arrests and made a spreadsheet documenting our findings. The spreadsheet contained rows and columns to help quantify details from the narratives: the type and weight of each drug, the type of arrest (traffic stop, bicycle stop, pedestrian stop), the defendant’s listed gang affiliation, whether the person’s car was towed and other notable details.

We learned some Chicago cops make lots of drug arrests that get thrown out and we formed a theory that they were “bad apples” engaging in unconstitutional or wrongful activity. But as we investigated, we learned the problem was bigger than a few bad apples: We found a systematic problem linked to an informal policy in the courthouse: judges and prosecutors routinely dismiss low-level drug cases, often before they even hear from an officer about the merits of the case.

We set out to interview all the key players in the system: judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, cops, people who use drugs, people who sell drugs, people who provide drug treatment and harm reduction services, civil rights advocates and legislators.

Our shoe-leather reporting began in a courtroom that a sheriff’s deputy initially did not allow us entry into. After speaking with a judge through a Zoom call, we were granted access and spent a couple of weeks hanging out inside the courtroom where we observed the proceedings (and gathered colorful context that we incorporated into our story) and established trust with key officials. Finally, a judge told us about the unwritten rule. We took ride-along trips with police officers to see what the drug activity looked like from their perspective.

All the while, we tried to apply some of the lessons we learned in our Center for Health Journalism fellowship about how structural racism in America creates uneven health care outcomes — a huge issue when it comes to harm reduction and addiction treatment in Chicago. We even quoted Dr. Anthony Iton, one of the speakers in our fellowship seminar, about structural racism. 

We spent time on the street with outreach workers who provide overdose-reversal drugs to drug users.

We also borrowed some organizational tools from Kathleen McGrory and Neil Bedi, who spoke in one of our fellowship seminars about their award-winning investigation for the Tampa Bay Tribune about a sheriff who used grades and child welfare records to profile schoolchildren.

They inspired us to amp up our organizational skills. We used Google Drive to store our court records, photos, interview transcripts and data in easily searchable files. We also took each of our interviews and created separate “stories” that boiled all the key information into reports we capped at 750 words. This allowed us to navigate easily through dozens of interviews and thousands of pages of research. 

Because we were working from home and we write for separate news organizations, the ability to work on common Google documents helped us literally “stay on the same page” as we rewrote our drafts over and over in suggestion mode.

We ran into obstacles. During our investigation, we learned social-service agencies aren’t always helpful in lining up interviews with people who use drugs. Privacy issues often get in the way. So we wound up randomly calling people and knocking on their doors to talk to them about their experiences with Chicago’s dead-end arrest system. And we were surprised that many people wanted to share their stories and have a photographer show them in their best light.

But building trust was an exercise in persistence. It meant showing up to courtrooms for meaningless status hearings, learning to overcome disconnected phone numbers by reaching out to families, navigating halfway houses and being very clear about the goals and purposes of our project.

We also got valuable information about Chicago’s illegal drug markets by simply writing letters to inmates serving sentences for drug dealing. Some were happy to correspond via email about how it all works. “Good dope sells itself,” one dealer told us, offering a profound nugget of wisdom about the underground drug economy.

Less successful were some of our efforts to illustrate our work in unique ways. For instance, we were able to shoot drone video of a Chicago neighborhood where the city’s drug arrests are concentrated, but we ran into editorial concerns over “parachute journalism” and “spotlighting” a particular community using technology that law enforcement agencies also use to make arrests. We still used those images in our work, but they were heavily edited and were not featured as prominently as we envisioned.

We also encountered resistance from the Chicago Police Department, which refused to answer our written questions and failed to turn over a body-camera video of arrests of the main subject of our Day 1 story, resulting in a lawsuit the Better Government Association has filed against the city. But, through the Freedom of Information Act, we were able to obtain a body-camera video of the arrest of a different person, which we did use in our report.

With financial help from the fellowship, we also traveled to Oregon to evaluate its new system of ticketing people caught with drugs instead of arresting them. We found that some of the goals of the program, such as moving people into treatment, haven’t been realized yet. The trip allowed us to draw a clearer link between drug addiction and homelessness.

In the end, our year-long project was time-consuming, frustrating at times, but ultimately rewarding. 

We explained how a deeply broken system in Chicago, one that’s churned out dead-end arrests for decades without regard for the lives of people caught in it, lurches on by the force of its own inertia – and that policymakers have done almost nothing to stop that from happening.

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