Jeremy Wynes has been living in Highland Park, Illinois since 2011. He and his family have been going to the town's 4th of July parade every year since then, and they always sit at the same spot -- right by a local shop called Uncle Dan's.
After the parade had been cancelled for two years due to COVID, Wynes and his family were excited to watch the parade again, and chose seats right by Uncle Dan's, like they always have.
Uncle Dan's is believed to be the store that the Robert Crimo III was standing on top of when he opened fire on the parade, killing seven people and injuring more than 30.
Wynes said the details are all still a little blurry. He said looking back, it's hard to believe that they all first thought the gunshots were firecrackers, but because of the setting he was in, it made sense.
"I remember standing up and taking a look 20 feet over or whatever it was to the intersection where it sounded like it was coming from, and thinking it was firecrackers," he said. "I think you started to hear the screaming and then you realize, that that's not actually what a firecracker sounds like."
Immediately, Wynes turned around and grabbed his seven-year-old son, who was sitting behind him.
"I just cradled him in my arms and started running in the opposite direction. I remember thinking, 'Do I get down? Should I lay down? I know some people were getting down, or should I just run?'" he said. "And you know, I haven't been trained in these types of situations. So I just followed my instinct, and I strapped him in front of me and just ran in the opposite direction."
Wynes and his son turned the corner and hid behind a bank on the next intersection. When he heard the firing stop, he ran to his car, which was parked just across the street.
"So I used that opportunity to run, open up our minivan as quickly as possible, lay my son flat on the ground. And then I realized, you know, my wife and her family, her parents weren't with us," he said.
His wife called him and said she and the other members of his family had run across the street, into the jewlery store that his father-in-law owns. They ran inside, he said, and let in as many families as they could, and laid down behind the counters. Wynes said he learned later that the store's windows were knocked out by gunfire.
Wynes' other son was set to be in the parade, with his baseball team.
"Thankfully, there was other parents around that he would go with, and he stayed with them when all this was happening," he said.
Wynes said it all happened so fast. He said he remembers before the shooting started that he commented on a family sitting across the street, and said to his wife that they had a better setup -- they were sitting in the shade. Wynes later found out that the woman in the family he was sitting across from had been shot and injured.
He added that the timing was somewhat lucky -- that the shooting began during a break in the parade. If it had been just a few minutes earlier, it would've been when the kids and pets parade was going on.
Now, though, Wynes said he wants to focus on the support the Highland Park community has shown in the wake of the tragedy.
"People who let us into backyards, and we're hearing all the stories of the great community that opened up their doors and let as many people into the basement as possible," he said. "That's what I want to focus on, rather than this this guy. And of course, we're all curious about what made him do this, but I hope we take the time to first remember the amazing people in our community and every other community like this, who would have done the same thing."
He said it's been hard, though -- especially on his young son.
"Unfortunately, people that night are still stupid enough to be lighting off fireworks, and he's had to go to sleep at night and wondering like, 'Dad can you turn the fan on, because I don't want to hear those sounds,'" he said. "So, that'll take a while I think, but we're resilient as everybody else, and we were going to continue to live our life."