Highland Park Shooting: Woman Recalls Rescuing Toddler Who Was Covered with His Father's Blood

Mar. 15, 2025

On Monday, when a shooter perched on a rooftop overlooking Center Street in Highland Park, Ill.,opened fireon people gathered for a July 4th parade, Lauren Silva was emerging from the city’s parking garage, on her way to get breakfast with her boyfriend and his son.

“We were just opening the door to walk up the stairs and we heard it,” recalled Silva, herself a mother of two, speaking toTheDailyBeast. “Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And it sounded like someone was, like, pounding on the glass doors.”

The 38-year-old former event planner told both outlets her boyfriend and his son discovered a young boy who was pinned beneath his unconscious father after the dad was shot in the leg.

They rescued the boy from under his dad, and rushed the blood-covered child into Silva’s arms. The child, still in diapers, had one shoe on, and his sock was soaked red, she said.

The scene following Monday’s shooting in Highland Park.TANNEN MAURY/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

As she carried him to the parking garage and to her car, where she had a first aid kit, the boy kept asking whether his parents were OK, she toldthe Times.

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“He kept asking if mom and dad are going to come back soon,” Silva recalled to theDaily Beast. Silva said she tried comforting him with stories about her own children, who are 3 and 7.

She had no idea where the boy’s mother could be, she told the paper.

Robert E. Crimo, III, 21, was taken into custody as a person of interest in the shooting on Monday.He was taken into custodyin Lake Forest, about eight miles north of Highland Park, some eight hours after the shooting.

At least 24 people were injured and six were killed in the shooting. A firearm and a high-powered rifle were recovered from the rooftop where the shooter had positioned himself.

The gunfire sent hundreds of parade participants and attendees running for safety. No motive is currently known for the shooting.

Back at her car, Silva cleaned up the child’s scrapes and cuts. Meanwhile, her boyfriend and his son were tending to the boy’s dad, tying a shirt around his leg in an effort to stop the bleeding.

Silva toldthe Timesshe saw two older women with gunshot wounds in the parking garage, along with a confused man who was looking for his 11-year-old son.

After some 20 minutes, she returned to the street with the boy. She told the paper it was relayed to her that responding EMT’s were not immediately to stop the father’s bleeding and had covered him in a blanket.

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She later handed the boy off to a relative. She said he is now with his grandparents.

Silva told theDaily Beastshe’s still coming to terms with what happened, and what she experienced Monday.

“The only thing I could hold onto is that kid’s face and his touch and the sound of his voice,” Silva told the site. “I feel like I want to hold on to, like, a little bit of emotion that I feel — which is telling that boy that his dad was going to come back.”

source: people.com