AFP

It was the leafy, suburban backdrop for classic American films such as “Risky Business” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” but now Highland Park, Illinois has become the scene of a uniquely American crime — the city has been added to the long list of deadly shootings in the United States.

During the town’s annual Fourth of July parade, a 21-year-old gunman stood on a rooftop and opened fire on the parade and its spectators.

At least seven people were killed and more than two dozen others wounded — victims chosen at random, police said Tuesday.

Along the parade route, American flags and LGBT pride flags hang side by side from lamp posts. But, behind yellow police tape, FBI officers are busy.

Overturned strollers still lie next to tricycles and folding chairs, all abandoned in the aftermath of the shooting that rocked the town, known for its plush homes, Lake Michigan beachfront and a few famous residents.

In front of the Highland Park Presbyterian Church, blue hearts have been mounted on small white sticks, inscribed with the names of the victims. Residents take turns writing a note on the hearts, which will be given to the families of the deceased. 

Natalie Belloff came to the scene Tuesday. A Highland Park native, she went to the same school as the accused shooter, though she said she didn’t know him.

The 20-year-old student at the University of Illinois told AFP she was “just horrified, mad… just appalled” by the shooting.

– ‘A safe community’ –

Belloff thinks the United States needs to pass more laws limiting access to guns.

“You can still have a second amendment right and not be able to purchase an assault rifle at the age of 20-21,” she said, referring to the US constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to bear arms.

Delivery driver Ivana Spasova agreed, saying “We shouldn’t give guns to young people and especially military-style guns.”

“This is a safe community,” said the 25-year-old, standing near the police cordon.

Susan Millner, 45, came with her mother to the scene of the shooting.

The two women had wanted to go to the parade with their families, like they do every year — but weren’t able to on Monday.

Millner said that in addition to guns, there is a “major mental health crisis” in the country.

“We don’t have the resources” to combat it, said the therapist, who noted that the situation has only gotten worse with the pandemic, particularly among younger people.

Andy Kanter, 60, a chief medical officer, was having trouble explaining what had happened to his children, aged eight and 10.

“It was a very difficult conversation to have for them,” he said. “We want people, especially our kids, to feel like they can grow up in a world where they have a future and where they can be happy. And trying to describe such a tragedy to them was a challenge.”

– Chicago elite –

A few tree-lined streets away from the scene of the tragedy are the large houses and neatly kept lawns of Highland Park.

Located just 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Chicago and its notorious crime problems, Highland Park is known as a quiet town. The municipality of 30,000 had even enacted a ban on assault rifles in 2013.

The city is also known for being home to some of Chicago’s elite: basketball superstar Michael Jordan lived there during his years with the Bulls, in a house worth nearly $15 million.

Famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright also designed several houses there.

And in the 1980s, many Highland Park houses served as the backdrop for iconic films including “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” — the home of the character Cameron, with the glass windows through which he accidentally sends his father’s Ferrari, is located there.

“Sixteen Candles” starring Molly Ringwald was also partly shot there, while a producer from the Tom Cruise hit “Risky Business” told the Chicago Tribune in 2013 that Highland Park’s affluence — “basically white boys off the lake” — made it the perfect setting for the film.

– Modest home –

The accused shooter, Robert Crimo, was arrested several hours after the attack.

He lived in Highwood, the neighboring town to Highland Park.

On his suburban street on Tuesday, calm had returned.

Dave MacNerland, one of Crimo’s neighbors, said people in the area are “super nice.” He described Highwood as “more of a working class community.”

Outside the suspect’s house — a far more modest building than many in Highland Park — an old gray car is parked on the lawn. 

A large sticker, apparently of bared teeth outlined in blood red, across its front bumper gives the vehicle a menacing grin.

A 21-year-old man who allegedly opened fire on a July 4 parade in a wealthy Chicago suburb while disguised in women’s clothing was charged with seven counts of first-degree murder on Tuesday, prosecutors said.

Robert Crimo, 21, was arrested on Monday, several hours after the attack on a festive Independence Day crowd.

“There will be more charges,” Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart told reporters. “We anticipate dozens of more charges centered around each of the victims.”

Police spokesman Christopher Covelli said the death toll rose to seven on Tuesday after one of the wounded victims died in hospital. More than 35 people were injured.

Among the dead were Kevin McCarthy, 37 and his wife, Irina, 35 — the parents of a two-year-old boy who was found wandering alone after the shooting, according to CBS News.

Covelli said no motive had been established for the attack, which sent panicked parade-goers fleeing for their lives.

“We do believe Crimo pre-planned this attack for several weeks,” and that he acted alone, he said.

“We have no information to suggest at this point it was racially motivated, motivated by religion or any other protected status,” he added.

He said Crimo has a history of mental health issues and threatening behavior.

Police had been called twice to Crimo’s home in 2019, once to investigate a suicide attempt, and the second time because a relative said he had threatened to “kill everyone” in the family, he said.

Police removed 16 knives, a dagger and a sword from the home but did not make any arrests, he said.

Covelli said Crimo used a fire escape to access the roof of a building overlooking the parade route and fired more than 70 rounds from a rifle “similar to an AR-15,” one of several guns he had purchased legally.

“Crimo was dressed in women’s clothing and investigators believe he did this to conceal his facial tattoos and his identity and help him during the escape with the other people who were fleeing the chaos,” he said.

– ‘Still reeling’ –

Covelli said Crimo went to his mother’s nearby home after the shooting and borrowed her car. He was captured about eight hours later after a brief chase.

He also said the authorities were investigating disturbing online posts and videos made by Crimo.

The shooting has left the upscale suburb in shock.

“We’re all still reeling,” Mayor Nancy Rotering told NBC’s Today show. “Everybody knows somebody who was affected by this directly.”

The mayor said she personally knew the suspected gunman when he was a young boy in the Cub Scouts.

“How did somebody become this angry, this hateful to then take it out on innocent people who literally were just having a family day out?” Rotering asked.

Crimo, whose father unsuccessfully ran for mayor and owns a store in Highland Park called Bob’s Pantry and Deli, was an amateur musician billing himself as “Awake the Rapper.”

The younger Crimo’s online postings include violent content that alluded to guns and shootings.

One YouTube video posted eight months ago featured cartoons of a gunman and people being shot.

A voice-over says, “I need to just do it.”

It adds: “It is my destiny. Everything has led up to this. Nothing can stop me, not even myself.”

Crimo, who has the word “Awake” tattooed over an eyebrow, is seen sporting an “FBI” hat in numerous photos and a Trump flag as a cape in one picture.

The shooting is the latest in a wave of gun violence plaguing the United States, where approximately 40,000 deaths a year are caused by firearms, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

– ‘Epidemic of gun violence’ –

The deeply divisive debate over gun control was reignited by two massacres in May that saw 10 Black people gunned down at an upstate New York supermarket, and 19 children and two teachers slain at an elementary school in Texas.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who happened to be in Chicago Tuesday for a summit of the nation’s largest teachers’ union, said the Texas shooting was a reminder “of the risks that our children and our educators face every day,” and renewed a call for Congress to ban assault weapons.

Speaking later at the scene of the Highland Park shooting, Harris said: “The whole nation should understand… that this could happen anywhere, in any peace-loving community.”

The Highland Park shooting cast a pall over Independence Day, when towns and cities across the United States hold parades and people attend barbecues, sporting events and fireworks displays.

In another July 4 shooting, two police officers were wounded when they came under fire during a fireworks show in Philadelphia.

In Highland Park, Emily Prazak, who marched in the parade, described the mayhem.

“We heard the pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, and I thought it was fireworks,” Prazak said.

President Joe Biden vowed to keep fighting “the epidemic of gun violence.”

Last week, he signed the first significant federal bill on gun safety in decades, just days after the Supreme Court ruled that Americans have a fundamental right to carry a handgun in public.

A small new study published Tuesday by scientists at the US National Institutes of Health suggests that the immune response triggered by coronavirus infections damages the brain’s blood vessels and could be responsible for long Covid symptoms.

The paper, published in the journal Brain, was based on brain autopsies from nine people who died suddenly after contracting the virus.

Rather than detecting evidence of Covid in the brain, the team found it was the people’s own antibodies that attacked the cells lining the brain’s blood vessels, causing inflammation and damage. 

This discovery could explain why some people have lingering effects from infection including headache, fatigue, loss of taste and smell, and inability to sleep as well as “brain fog” — and may also help devise new treatments for long Covid.  

NIH scientist Avindra Nath, the paper’s senior author, said in a statement: “Patients often develop neurological complications with COVID-19, but the underlying pathophysiological process is not well understood.”

“We had previously shown blood vessel damage and inflammation in patients’ brains at autopsy, but we didn’t understand the cause of the damage. I think in this paper we’ve gained important insight into the cascade of events.”

The nine individuals, aged 24 to 73, were selected from the team’s prior study because they showed evidence of blood vessel damage in their brains based on scans. 

Their brains were compared to those from 10 controls, with the team examining neuroinflammation and immune responses using a technique called immunohistochemistry.

The scientists discovered that antibodies produced against Covid-19 mistakenly targeted cells that form the “blood-brain barrier” — a structure designed to keep harmful invaders out of the brain while allowing necessary substances to pass. 

Damage to these cells can cause leakage of proteins, bleeding and clots, which elevates the risk of stroke.

The leaks also trigger immune cells called macrophages to rush to the site to repair damage, causing inflammation.

The team found that normal cellular processes in the areas targeted by the attack were severely disrupted, which had implications for things such as their ability to de-toxify and to regulate metabolism.

The findings offer clues about the biology at play in patients with long-term neurological symptoms, and can inform new treatments — for example, a drug that targets the build-up of antibodies on the blood-brain barrier.

“It is quite possible that this same immune response persists in Long COVID patients resulting in neuronal injury,” said Nath.

This would mean that a drug that dials down that immune response could help those patients, he added. “So these findings have very important therapeutic implications.”

American ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s said Tuesday it is suing its parent company Unilever to block a move that would see its product sold in West Bank settlements, which would run counter to its values.

The company, known for its political activism, took the unusual step seeking an injunction after London-based Unilever last week announced it had sold its interest in the ice cream to Israeli license-holder Avi Zinger.

The legal action was “essential to … protect the brand and social integrity Ben & Jerry’s has spent decades building,” according to the complaint filed in a US district court.

Unilever’s decision was “made without the consent of Ben & Jerry’s Independent Board,” and goes against the merger agreement that gave the board the ability to protect the founder’s values and reputation, the complaint said.

In July last year, Vermont-based Ben & Jerry’s announced it would no longer sell its ice cream in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, which the Jewish state seized in 1967, saying it was “inconsistent with our values,” although it said it planned to keep selling its products in Israel.

However, Zinger had continued to produce the ice cream in his factory in the suburbs of Tel Aviv and distribute it to the Israeli settlements, going against Ben & Jerry’s decision.

Hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, in communities widely regarded as illegal under international law.

Palestinians cheered the company’s move last year, seen as a victory for the BDS movement, which calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions of the Jewish state over what it describes as the mistreatment of Palestinians.

Founded in the United States in 1978, Ben & Jerry’s is known for championing progressive causes, including protecting the environment and promoting human rights, and has frequently released special ice cream flavors to support causes or in protest.

Unilever, which last week said it had “never expressed any support” for the BDS movement, defended its right to execute the transaction.

“As we said in our statement of 29th June, Unilever had the right to enter this arrangement. The deal has already closed,” the company said Tuesday, adding “We do not comment on pending litigation.”

Before he allegedly murdered seven spectators at a US Independence Day parade, the Highland Park community knew Robert Crimo as a quiet kid and former Cub Scout.

But online, the 21-year-old known to friends and family as “Bobby” showed a strong inclination for violence and anger at being overlooked.

“I know him as somebody who was a Cub Scout when I was the Cub Scout leader,” Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering told NBC on Tuesday, describing Crimo as “just a little boy.”

“It is one of those things where you step back and you say, ‘What happened?'”

Crimo, who grew up in Highland Park, just outside Chicago, lived in an apartment behind his father’s house. His dad, Bob Crimo, owned a local deli and had run against Rotering for mayor in 2019.

Crimo’s uncle, Paul Crimo, described his nephew on CNN as a “lonely, quiet person” who spent much of his time in front of his computer, not saying much.

A day after the shooting, authorities revealed that in 2019 Crimo had been visited twice by police, first after a suspected attempt at suicide, and a second time to remove a collection of knives, after he allegedly threatened to “kill everyone.”

– ‘Awake’ –

A thin white man with a patchy beard, Crimo sports several tattoos on his neck and face, including one above his left eyebrow of the word “Awake,” a reference to his stage name.

Multiple songs and videos posted online by “Awake the Rapper” include several references to mass shootings.

In one cartoon-style music video, the protagonist is seen shooting people with a rifle before finding himself lying in a pool of blood, shot dead by the police.

“I just want to scream. Sometimes it feels like I’m living a dream,” sings the rapper.

Another video is of Crimo in a classroom, wearing a helmet and bulletproof vest and standing next to an American flag as he throws bullets on the floor.

The voiceover on that video says, “I need to leave now, I need to just do it. It is my destiny. Everything has led up to this; nothing can stop me, not even myself.”

In another clip, Crimo says, “I hate when others get more attention than me on the internet.”

The videos and songs have now been removed from YouTube and Spotify.

Crimo’s social media pages have also been taken down, but archived photos from his accounts appear to show him at a rally for then-president Donald Trump.

In another, Crimo appears to have a Trump flag draped around his shoulders. He also posted a picture of “Pepe the frog”, a cartoon character that has become a rallying symbol for the American far right.

Bennett Brizes, a friend who had recently become estranged from Crimo, told the Washington Post the young man was “consistently apolitical,” and when asked about current events would always answer, “Man, I don’t know.”

Crimo “seems to have intended violence for a long time, even illustrating it” in his videos, said Emerson Brooking, a research fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank specializing in extremist internet and social media usage.

But even with the apparent pro-Trump images, “so far it does *not* appear that he was partisan or ideological,” Brooking said on Twitter.