CHICAGO — Mayor Nancy Rotering had just started walking in Highland Park’s Independence Day parade when the music from the high school’s marching band ended abruptly, replaced by an ominous cadence.
“I didn’t realize it at the time, but what I was hearing was the gunshots,” she said.
An instant later, spectators and marchers bolted from the noise and first responders ran toward it as the terrible realization struck that the North Shore town was under attack. Rotering and others screamed at the crowd to leave as a rooftop sniper fired dozens of shots, killing seven people and wounding more than 20.
Rotering, a near-lifelong resident of Highland Park and its mayor since 2011, was immediately thrust into a global spotlight while trying to lead her town through an unimaginable crisis and pressing for changes to America’s gun laws.
Nine years ago, Rotering signed a city ordinance banning assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.
Highland Park has 30,000 residents but a small town vibe, so perhaps it’s no surprise Rotering has a connection with the suspect, 21-year-old Robert Crimo III: She was his Cub Scout leader years ago, recalling him only as “a quiet little boy,” and she defeated his father Bob in the 2019 mayoral election.
Speaking with the Tribune hours after attending three funerals Friday, Rotering described how her job and her town have changed in the wake of the shooting.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: How are the people of Highland Park doing at this point?
A: The grief and the agony is profound. A few of the folks at one of the funerals are recovering from gunshot wounds. They just went to celebrate the Fourth of July with their families and now, for all of us, we will be changed forever. We will heal as a community but we will never be exactly who we were before the Fourth of July.
Q: What has been the biggest challenge in leading the city through this?
A: Getting information to people who need it. We’ve worked really hard, but people who are so shellshocked are also having a hard time being able to use their usual abilities to get information. I think the biggest challenge is the magnitude of pain. It’s indescribable — the pain, the fury, the frustration, the anger, the sense of disbelief, the sense of how did this happen and trying to find somebody to hold accountable.
Q: Other than the shooter, where does accountability lie?
A: We’ve been having conversations about, “Are the laws strong enough?” My stance, obviously, is that I feel very deeply that there’s no place for combat weapons in everyday society. I went to look at the site just now where the shooter was and where the victims were, and the fact that he had a weapon that could create such violence in such a short period of time makes no sense. It makes no sense.
We’re a civilized nation. These guns need to go. We’re not in a battle zone. I was at Stephen Straus’ funeral and his grandson Toby read (the war poem) “In Flanders Fields.” He said, “My grandfather was in a war zone at the end of his life.” And that really sunk into the group because his grandfather was in a zone where somebody was using a combat weapon to kill people.
Q: What do you think the lasting effect of this is going to be on Highland Park?