The country is reeling from yet another mass shooting after gunfire erupted over the holiday weekend at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois. Lisa Park, who was a witness at the celebration that turned deadly, joined Cheddar News to share her recount of the event.

Cheddar's News Wrap

Witness From Highland Park Shooting Describes Horrific Scene

community where mike is in Illinois is still reeling from this vicious attack. After what should have been a day of celebrations joining me now is a witness to the shooting lisa rush lisa first, I want to say thank you so much for coming on, thank you so much for sharing your story. I'm glad you're safe. And the most important question is how are you and your family doing today? Thank you for having me, Hannah. Our family is devastated. Communities devastated. We are all numb and we are trying to heal as a community and we are taking day by day right now trying to heal some friends who have been injured, support their families and doing the task at hand and just trying to get back to some normalcy lisa. Can you take us back to monday? Walk us through the experience from when you got to the parade and then what happened afterwards. So like every other 4th of July parade my family attends and it is a big event in my family. My husband, volunteers for the police department. He's part of the search team, withstand for the community emergency response team and he dresses in his uniform, rides off about an hour before the parade to help with crowd control and the parade route staying clear and doing some Mild help to the police for celebratory events and such. I meet my parents every year I have an elderly parents, a mother who's 84, a father who's 86. We usually meet every year at the pancake house which is a destination which happened to be around zero. But this year my father said it's too crowded. I don't want to sit there. I want to sit in front of Chase Bank. So my dad about a block away at Chase Bank. I was arguing with my dad, he's quite stubborn. I wanted to be at the pancake house. That's where my friends were meeting and I didn't want to argue anymore with my parents. So I sat down Chase Bank and the parade started About what seemed like 10 minutes into the parade must have been about 15 minutes. I was standing with other residents and I heard several long loud pops and I looked to the resident next to me and I said, that doesn't sound good with kind of a little humor. And she looked at me and said, no, it does not. And in my mind, I knew in the years past, some of the veterans marched with their guns and they have air rifles and they launched a shot into the air and it's been years that they did that. But I haven't been to the parade due to Covid in a couple of years. So at first I thought it was one of the veterans or possibly the sailors that are marching in the parade within seconds seemed like a second, Another round of the thunderous, loud aggressive pops that you feel in your heart. And it went down into my core of this is not good. And I looked up the street and I saw proud of people running towards me a lot out of a movie screaming, running grabbing Children, hands flying everywhere, people darting down the different streets off of the main central avenue and at that point I looked to my parents and I screamed, run and my dad bent down to fold up his chairs and I said leave the chairs, nobody could kind of grasp what was going on. I for sure went into the fight or flight mode, I grabbed my parents, my mom screamed, I can't run. I dragged her by the arm and we headed east and the third storefront down is our local shop called country kitchen where we go for breakfast and the owner ruby was standing outside waving us into the restaurant as she saw mayhem and chaos coming her way. I darted into the restaurant and at that point I called my husband as I knew he was on his bike somewhere in the parade. My husband at answered the phone and complete and utter panic screaming to me, there's a shooter, seek shelter anyhow up the phone and at that point I stayed everyone in country kitchen do not leave, we need to stay in and people were being escorted into country kitchen at that time we were all frightened. I couldn't catch my breath and From there about every 15 minutes or so I seem to get some information from my husband of what was going on and to lock the doors and seek shelter lisa, I have to ask you, what was your husband who you mentioned as a volunteer emergency responder? What was he hearing? What were the stories from the street? I'm sure this was like no other parade he's ever been to recovered. So as my husband was riding through the parade, he was happened to be riding east toward the shooter when the shoots, when, when it went off. Um, I didn't have exact moment to moment of what was happening for him. As I said earlier, every 15 minutes I got a report. He said that there were residents grabbing at him. My friend has been shot, Someone's hurt. I need your help sir, he had on the bright yellow vest. People probably assumed he was a paramedic or something of the sort. He went to help as many people as he can. He escorted elderly to safety, he moved Children, he helped women get to where they needed to be. He helped the police escort injured by these And as I said, every 15 minutes I would receive information limited but very clear and to stay put, and it was. it was just complete and utter. I don't have to tell you, your husband's a hero. You know, I've covered so many of these tragic shootings from Newtown to Parkland. Now I'm watching this one thing I always noticed is how the community comes together. What can people do to help your community um right now we are healing as a community through churches, synagogues, vigils, um just the support of one another, there is a go fund me page for the Highland Park victims as you can see on the screen, there are different account set up for each victim and their families get to go fund me to every victim needs help and the most important we need to get the laws changed for guns and there there's only one way and that's to vote, we need to vote to get the candidates that will support the safety in our town and every town from this Highland park across the country Please, I have about 30 seconds with you and again, I wanna just tell you, I appreciate how much I appreciate sharing your experience, you know a lot of people that live in Highland Park, we keep hearing this repeatedly, they live in that neighborhood because of the safety and the community, did you ever imagine something like this could happen where you live? No, and I always heard the devastation and the trauma of mass shootings across the country and it was over there and it was over there and it was over there and as someone has said before me, don't wait because it's going to be right there and it was right here and it will be everywhere until we get these laws changed, I'm so glad you and your family are okay, This took I know how much bravery it took to come on tv and talk to us and I really appreciate it, lisa Russian. Of course. Thank you. Thank you lisa lisa Rush, resident of Highland Park and witness to the fourth of july parade shooting. Please visit the link on your screen to donate or help in any way.