Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering testified in front of a US Senate committee July 20.- She spoke of the devestating impact the Fourth of July
mass shooting left on her town and called for a ban on assault weapons.
Sixteen days after a 21-year-old used an assault rifle to shoot 83 rounds into a crowd of parade goers on the Fourth of July in Highland Park, Illinois, the city's mayor said the community is still "trying to figure out the next step to healing."
Mayor Nancy Rotering testified to the impact the mass shooting — which left 7 people dead and dozens injured — has had on Highland Park, including scaring residents to the point that a vigil for the victims had to include heavy security.
"We held our vigil with traumatized community members as well as SWAT teams and rooftop sniper teams because people were scared to gather together," Rotering said to a Senate committee July 20.
Rotering called for a national ban on assault weapons during the hearing, saying other American mayors are wondering "not if, but when," a mass shooting will take place in their town.
"Highland Park had the uniquely American experience of a Fourth of July parade turn into what has now become a uniquely American experience of a mass shooting," Rotering said.
Rotering was walking in the parade when the shots rang out, she testified.
"I looked left and waved to my husband in the crowd," Rotering said." What I didn't know at that moment was that just to my right, on a one-story rooftop, a 21-year-old was preparing to traumatize my hometown forever with an assault weapon."