Highland Park mayor says she was the shooting suspect's Cub Scout leader, questions how he became 'this angry' and 'hateful'

• Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering said she was the shooting suspect's Cub Scout leader.
• She told the "Today" show that she wondered how somebody could become "this angry" and "hateful."

Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering said she had known the 21-year-old suspect in Monday's mass shooting since he was a child.

"I know him as somebody who was a Cub Scout when I was the Cub Scout leader," Rotering told NBC's "Today" show in an interview released on Tuesday.

"And it's one of those things where you step back and you say, 'What happened?'" she said. "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?"

"He was just a little boy," said Rotering while recounting her impression of the shooting suspect in his childhood.

"Clearly, he's had some major issues if he felt compelled to bring evil to his hometown on the Fourth of July," she told Insider on Tuesday.

Rotering told "Today" that she believed her community was "never going to recover from this wound," calling the shooting an "absolutely devastating blow" to everyone.

"We, as a country, have to have a very strong conversation with ourselves," she said.

"I don't know how many more of these events need to occur. We've been talking about this, literally, for decades at this point," Rotering added. "And it's one of those things where you ask yourself if this reflects the values of who we are, then what does that say about us as a nation?"

Monday's mass shooting has left at least seven people dead and dozens injured.

Authorities said the shooting suspect was disguised in women's clothes during the attack. They also said that the suspect had posted violent music videos depicting mass shootings online and imagery of the parade site before the shooting.

The shooting suspect was arrested on Monday evening and has since been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder.