Police said the victims, attacked by a gunman firing from a roof, ranged from octogenarians to children as young as age 8. All six of those who died on Monday were adults, said Deputy Chief Christopher Covelli of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office. Authorities said a seventh person died on Tuesday but did not immediately release the identity.
Adrienne Rosenblatt, 71, said she immediately feared the worst when she saw a photo online on Monday of the then-unidentified toddler who had been found by Ms. Silva. He was Ms. Rosenblatt’s neighbor, and she had coached him to overcome his fears of her small white dog, Lovie.
She alerted the boy’s grandparents, who brought him home from the police station. Irina Colon of Northbrook, Ill., a relative of the child’s mother, said in a fund-raising appeal that she posted on GoFundMe that the boy was “left in the unthinkable position; to grow up without his parents.”
“It’s just so sad,” Ms. Rosenblatt quietly said.
“Do you call him an orphan?” Ms. Rosenblatt quietly asked.
The Lake County coroner, Jennifer Banek, released the names of four other victims on Tuesday. “It is with a heavy heart,” she said, “that I bring to you the names of the victims of that tragedy.”
All but one were residents of Highland Park, the bucolic suburb north of Chicago where the celebration was a community tradition. They could have come from any Independence Day crowd in any town in the nation:
A grandfather who had been sitting in a choice spot his family had selected for him. A 63-year-old woman who was the go-to person for special events in her synagogue congregation. A beloved uncle who still went to work every day, even in his late 80s. A mother and wife who, only recently, had mused about where she would want her ashes scattered.
And a suburban couple who had taken their toddler to a parade.
Here, based on interviews, is what else we know about those who died.
Katherine Goldstein, 64
A mother of two daughters in their early 20s, Katherine Goldstein was described by her husband, Craig Goldstein, as a perennial good sport who was willing to explore a succession of exotic locales without batting an eye. “She didn’t complain, ‘There are bugs.’ She was always along for the ride,” Dr. Goldstein, a hospital physician, said in an interview.
Dr. Goldstein said that his wife did not work outside their home after they were married in the late 1990s and that she devoted herself to being a mother. She took her elder daughter, Cassie, to the Highland Park parade on the Fourth so that Cassie could reunite with friends from high school. Ms. Goldstein was fond of playing games with her children, like the word game Bananagrams, her younger daughter, Alana, recalled.
Dr. Goldstein said that his wife and her siblings recently lost their mother, and that they had been discussing what kind of arrangements they would like for themselves upon their own death. He recalled that Katherine, an avid bird watcher, said she wanted to be cremated and to have her remains scattered in the Montrose Beach area of Chicago, where there is a bird sanctuary.
But the reflection on her own mortality was out of character, he said. “The amazing thing about Katie is that she never thought about her own death,” Dr. Goldstein said. “For me it’s almost a preoccupation. She never thought about it.”
Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78
Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza didn’t want to attend the Highland Park Fourth of July parade, but his disabilities required that he be around someone full-time. And the family wasn’t going to skip the parade — even going so far as positioning chairs for a choice viewing spot at midnight the night before.
Mr. Toledo-Zaragoza was sitting in his wheelchair along the parade route, between his son and a nephew, when the bullets started flying. “We realized our grandfather was hit,” Xochil Toledo, his granddaughter, said. “We saw blood and everything splattered onto us.”
Mr. Toledo-Zaragoza suffered three gunshot wounds, killing him. He had moved back to Highland Park a few months ago from Mexico at the urging of family members. He had been struck by a car while walking in Highland Park a few years ago in a prior stint living with family, and had a range of medical issues resulting from that accident.
“We brought him over here so he could have a better life,” Ms. Toledo said. “His sons wanted to take care of him and be more in his life, and then this tragedy happened.”
Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63
A smile and a hug. Those were the guarantees every time Jacquelyn Sundheim — known as “Jacki” — walked into Marlena Jayatilake’s spice shop in downtown Highland Park, Ill.
“She was such a beautiful human being, a beautiful ray of light,” Ms. Jayatilake said. “So it’s definitely a dark day.”
Ms. Sundheim, a member of the North Shore Congregation Israel in Glencoe, Ill., was among the people killed in Highland Park, according to the synagogue, where friends said she coordinated events and did a bit of everything else.
Janet Grable, a friend, said she went far beyond her expectations in planning the bar mitzvahs for both her children and arranging special seating for her mother when she joined services while in town.
Stephen Straus, 88
A father of two, grandfather of four and a financial adviser who, at 88, still took the train every day from his Highland Park home to his office at a brokerage firm in Chicago, Stephen Straus “should not have had to die this way,” his niece, Cynthia Straus, said in a phone interview.
“He was an honorable man who worked his whole life and looked out for his family and gave everyone the best he had,” Ms. Straus said. “He was kind and gentle and had huge intelligence and humor and wit.”
Two of Mr. Straus’s grandsons, Tobias Straus, 20, and Maxwell Straus, 18, said in an interview that they and their parents typically gathered with Mr. Straus and his wife for dinner each Sunday evening, including the evening before the shooting. Tobias, who fondly recalled his grandfather’s sense of humor, said Mr. Straus was in vintage form.
“He ordered ‘spaghetti with two meatballs, hold one meatball,’” Tobias Straus said. After he complimented his grandfather’s watch, he added, his grandfather gave it to him “out of nowhere.”
“It was literally the night before.”
Cynthia Straus said her uncle and his community should have been better protected: “There’s kind of a mentality that this stuff doesn’t touch us,” she said.
“And no one can think that way right now — we are in an internal war in this country. This country is turning on itself. And innocent people are dying.”
Reporting was contributed by Amanda Holpuch, Michael Levenson, Eduardo Medina and John Yoon. Susan Campbell Beachy provided research.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/07/05/us/highland-park-shooting
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