“The kids and their families have experienced and are experiencing real trauma they have to deal with daily,” one mother said, addressing the crowd and a panel of local politicians who attended the meeting.

Referencing the social media post, the mom said, “those words are a break of trust that is absolutely critical in a school — and that trust has been broken.”

“Kids do not feel safe, which means they aren’t safe,” she added.

The audience at the morning meeting included many children whose parents said they had pulled them out of school that day because of worry over a controversial social media post that appeared to have been made by a West Chicago Elementary District 33 employee.

A written statement from Superintendent Kristina Davis said that on Jan. 22 the school district “learned of concerns regarding a disruptive social media comment made by a district employee on his personal account.”

The teacher initially submitted his resignation but later that day he withdrew it before the school board had an opportunity to take action, according to the statement.

On Monday, the employee met with district administration and afterward was placed on administrative leave pending a district investigation. The employee won’t be permitted on district property during the investigation, the statement added.

The statement did not name the employee or the school at which he works.

“We understand that this situation has raised concerns and caused disruption for students, families, and staff,” according to the statement. “We want to ensure our schools are safe spaces, and we look forward to seeing all students back in school tomorrow.”

An online petition with more than 380 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon called for parents in the district to keep their children home from school on Monday in protest.

“This week, a D33 teacher commented, “Go ICE!” in response to a community article,” the petition said. “The casual way in which he publicly promoted the actions of ICE in our area is inappropriate and unsuitable for an educator.”

The petition noted that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has “actively harmed the families in our area, including the students (the employee) is tasked to care for daily.”

“The best way to show our district that we need action to be taken is to show them that keeping this teacher will disrupt the emotional welfare and therefore, the education of our students,” the petition said.

West Chicago officials called Monday’s meeting a “community listening session” and said it was hosted by city officials to “provide a space for voices to be heard in a way that does not further impact students or disrupt school operations.”

The meeting came as clashes over immigration enforcement tactics have reached a flashpoint nationwide following the deadly shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday at the hands of immigration officials, the second U.S. citizen to be killed by federal forces in Minnesota this month.

During the West Chicago meeting, Mayor Daniel Bovey described the terror many local children have experienced during the recent onslaught of immigration enforcement in the Chicago area, dubbed Operation Midway Blitz.

“The reason we are here this morning is because our community is one that has been traumatized in the last three months, four months by the actions of ICE,” Bovey told the crowd at the start of the meeting. “And we have kids in the schools … in the school in question who have lost a mom or a dad in recent months. We have kids who are having panic attacks at school, who are afraid that they will get home and their mom or their dad will not be there.”

The issue is not about an individual’s right to an opinion that might go against the majority, he added.

“The issue is we have trusted adults who are the ones that care for those kids when they can’t be with their mom and their dad,” the mayor said. “So to have someone cavalierly rooting on — as if it’s a football game or something, yeah go — events which have traumatized these children … that is the issue.”

During an interview with the Tribune on Tuesday, Bovey said he had personally received “hundreds of hate messages” regarding the incident, adding that the vast majority are coming from all over the country and very few are from within the community.

“Our school district has received thousands of hate messages. And I would again ask that in considering how each one of us responds to the situation, that everyone keep the welfare of the children as their first priority,” he added. “We’re trying to do everything we can to keep the kids in our district from bearing the brunt of it.”

Democrat State Rep. Maura Hirschauer told the crowd at the meeting that, “your feelings matter.”

“Your safety matters,” she added. “The way you feel in school matters.”

Deborah Taylor, president of the Elementary Teachers’ Association of West Chicago, said during the meeting that the union understands “the anger and uncertainty that you are feeling right now.”

“As teachers who care deeply for the well-being of our students and community, we are worried and saddened by the devastating effects of violent, threatening, and discriminatory actions in West Chicago and our nation as a whole in recent times,” she added. “We want to reassure you that our schools are a safe place for your children. We strongly believe that schools should be a safe place for every one of our students, regardless of race, ethnicity or immigration status.”

One third grade boy spoke during the meeting and told the crowd he was glad the district was investigating the social media post.

He added that the presence at school of the employee accused of posting the message, “might not make some of my friends feel safe.”

“I want all my friends to feel and be safe,” the boy added.

During an interview with the Tribune, Democrat state Sen. Karina Villa, who lives in West Chicago, said the community is fortunate to have many “loving teachers.”

“We all have the freedom of speech in this country,” added Villa, who also attended the meeting. “But words have meanings and when those words are used in a way that draws fear from children then those words must have consequences.”

No members of the West Chicago District 33 school board were at the meeting.

School board President Rita Balgeman said in an email to the Tribune that the board “is aware of the concerns being raised and the disruptive impact this situation is having on our students, families, schools, and community.”

Balgeman referred to the superintendent’s statement but said the district couldn’t comment further on personnel matters.

The next school board meeting is scheduled for Feb. 5, according to the district calendar.

Controversial social media posts made by educators have recently come under fire at other school districts, including several made by teachers in the wake of the September fatal shooting of conservative activist and Prospect Heights native Charlie Kirk.

In some cases, teachers resigned or were fired amid mounting public pressure and doxing campaigns, as well as threats by elected officials and education leaders.

A high school English teacher was placed under investigation by her south suburban school district in connection with a Facebook post in which she allegedly called Kirk’s assassination “the single best example of you reap what you sow.”

A Kentland, Indiana, high school history teacher ignited backlash after apparently writing on social media: “(Expletive) Charlie Kirk and his rhetoric. That being said, we need to work together to do better.”

Parents and community members were often divided over whether these educators should be subject to disciplinary action, with some members of the public supporting their right to free speech and others questioning their judgment.

“My 13-year-old, who is learning more each day about this evil in the world, is forced to ask the question of whether or not a teacher she’s passed in the hall desired the murder of another human being,” one parent said during a Kentlandschool board meeting in September. “That’s extremely sad and I’m heartbroken.” ]]> 1400791 2026-01-29T08:34:45+00:00 2026-01-29T08:35:08+00:00 https://www.thenewsherald.com/2025/11/25/chicago-children-left-behind-immigration/ Tue, 25 Nov 2025 16:03:08 +0000 https://www.thenewsherald.com/?p=1379022&preview=true&preview_id=1379022 The bell rang at Logan Elementary School on Chicago’s Northwest Side and 12-year-old Delila waited outside for her father to pick her up as usual.

She searched the crowd, but she couldn’t find him anywhere. Instead, “I found the landlord’s husband,” the seventh grader said.

The landlord’s husband, along with Delila’s grandfather, broke the news that immigration agents had arrested her dad. Pablo Blancas-Gomez — Delila’s sole parent — had been arrested by federal immigration authorities during a raid earlier that day on Chicago’s North Side.

The girl grew quiet for a second. Then she burst into tears.

Usually she had warned her father about immigration agents before he went to work on construction sites.

“That one day he was taken, that day we didn’t say anything,” Delila said from her new home with her half-sister, Kassandra Ramirez. She looked down toward the table. “Can I get a second chance?” she choked out.

Delila has not seen her father since his Oct. 21 arrest while working on a home improvement project in the West Ridge neighborhood. The 45-year-old remains in custody at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility more than 1,500 miles away in El Paso, Texas. His hearing is scheduled for Dec. 2.

Their separation illustrates a tragic consequence of the Trump administration’s recent immigration crackdown: Children have been left behind after a parent is detained or deported, often without a formal plan for their care or process for reuniting with their mothers and fathers.

Delila’s father has been her primary caretaker since her mom died in 2023. Now her half-sister, Ramirez, has assumed all the responsibilities of a parent overnight. The 32-year-old is still trying to figure out the logistics of caretaking, from balancing school drop-offs and pickups while working a full-time job, to the finances of providing for a child.

“Pablo was taking care of her, that’s her dad,” she said. “That’s something I didn’t plan.”

Immigration experts say the federal government has no comprehensive system to track minors who are separated from their parents upon detention or deportation.

Some of these children have been taken in by relatives or trusted caretakers. Others could end up in foster care.

All undergo the upheaval and trauma of abrupt separation from their primary caregivers.

The result is a new nationwide “family separation crisis,” said Kelly Albinak Kribs of The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights.

“Hundreds, if not thousands, of families are being torn apart,” which will have a long-lasting and rippling effect on children and families, said Kribs, who works with immigrant families involved in the state welfare system in Illinois and across the country.

She drew parallels to the mass family separations during President Donald Trump’s first term spurred by theadministration’s so-called “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, when nearly 5,000 children were forcibly separated from their families by the United States government at the southern border between 2017 and 2021.

Roughly 1,360 of those children still have not been reunited with their parents, according to a December 2024 Human Rights Watch report.

Today, it’s unclear exactly how many minors have been separated from a parent or guardian in the Chicago area and across the country amid the administration’s roving immigration enforcement.

Most recently, U.S. Border Patrol was in North Carolina after pulling back on its Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, with agents planning to mobilize in New Orleans next, according to reports.

Amid its operations, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in an email that ICE “does not separate families.”

“Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or if they would like ICE (to) place the children with a safe person the parent designates,” she said. “This is consistent with (the) past administration’s immigration enforcement.”

She added that parents in this situation also have the option of self-deportation.

The agency did not say whether it tracked cases of family separations or how many children have been left stranded due to parental detention or deportation.

A July 2025 ICE policy states that when a parent is detained the agency “should, to the extent operationally feasible, facilitate the (detainee’s) efforts to make arrangements” for their minor children.

The directive also says agency’s enforcement actions should not “unnecessarily infringe upon the legal parental guardianship rights and obligations” of parents and legal guardians who are primary caretakers of minors in the United States.

Yet Illinois officials have repeatedly argued that this isn’t the case in practice.

During a September press conference, Gov. JB Pritzker condemned the “aggressive tactics” of federal immigration officials in the Chicago area, including “leaving children stranded after their parents were arrested.”

News reports tell the stories of many minors like Delila who have been kept from their parents due to immigration enforcement, chronicling the stress, fear, mental health strain and anguish such separations can inflict on families.

A CNN report in September found more than 100 U.S. citizen children — ranging from babies to teens — were left parentless after immigration enforcement officials detained their mothers and fathers.

The case of a recently deported 56-year-old widower, single parent and sole caretaker for four U.S. citizen children was highlighted last month in a sweeping federal lawsuit alleging inhumane and unsafe conditions at the ICE holding facility in west suburban Broadview.

“His children, who are already grieving the loss of their mother from earlier this year, now must process the sudden loss of their father,” the lawsuit said.

A Tribune story in June recounted the anguish of a 6-year-old girl whose mother was detained by ICE outside an office in downtown Chicago during what was supposed to be a routine check-in. The child — who was left behind without a guardian or legal path for reunification — couldn’t understand why her mom had suddenly vanished and wasn’t in the audience during her kindergarten graduation.

Now, more immigrant families locally and across the nation are scrambling to find information about temporary guardianship arrangements to transfer custody of their children to a designated person in the case of an emergency like detention or deportation.

Rebekah Rashidfarokhi of Chicago Volunteer Legal Services has been inundated with requests for training or information about short-term guardianship forms.

She used to receive two or three calls about these forms a year. Now she gets two or three calls a day.

“We are getting exponentially larger numbers of calls and requests, more than I can really accommodate,” said Rashidfarokhi, director of guardianship and immigration programs for children.

Delila said she has difficulty sleeping. First she lost her mom. Now she fears she might lose her father as well.

“I lost my best friend,” Delila said. “He’s my dad, but he’s my best friend too.”

Delila is strong, but her dad is everything to her; their father-daughter bond has grown significantly since her mother died two years ago, Ramirez said. Her sister receives support from her teachers at school and has had counseling.

About two days after Blancas-Gomez was arrested, the dad and daughter spoke over the phone.

The call lasted around two minutes.

She asked him where he was; he indicated he was at the ICE facility in Broadview at the time.

Then his voice cracked, she recalled.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too,” Delila replied.

‘Second chance’

Delila and her dad used to eat spaghetti covered in his special sauce made of mayo and ketchup.

They would play Pac-Man and go for rides together in his red work truck, Delila recalled.

It was the same vehicle that was left on the side of the road with the key still in the ignition when immigration enforcement took Blancas-Gomez while he was working at home on the day of the raid. At least 12 people were taken in the sweep.

The office of the 40th Ward was notified of immigration enforcement activity in the area. Ald. Andre Vasquez and his chief of staff, Cat Sharp, drove to the site and found the abandoned truck.

Video footage of the scene reviewed by the Tribune showed Blancas-Gomez wearing a black beanie next to his red truck, his hands behind his back.

“It’s hard to explain unless you’re going through it,” recalled Ramirez, who shared a mother with Delila and has known Blancas-Gomez for many years. “Like in the movies, everything just stops and it just sounds like a buzzing in your ears.”

Department of Homeland Security officials referred to Blancas-Gomez as “a violent criminal illegal alien from Mexico” in the agency’s statement to the Tribune.

“His rap sheet includes multiple arrests for domestic battery, theft, and criminal property damage,” McLaughlin said, adding that Blancas-Gomez had been removed from the United States three times previously before reentering the country a fourth time, which is a felony.

Cook County court records show Blancas-Gomez was charged with domestic violence and criminal property damage in 2019, although the case was dropped shortly afterward. He also was found not guilty in a labor theft case that started in 2015.

The day Blancas-Gomez was taken, at least a dozen people were detained by immigration agents in different locations, Sharp said.

Multiple children have reached out about their parents being taken, she added.

“That piece especially has been the most heartbreaking,” she said. “In some instances, we’ve heard of neighbors just taking in kids temporarily.”

In a perfect world, vulnerable families should preemptively identify a caretaker in case of possible detention or deportation, which can be done by filing a short-term guardianship form, said Rashidfarokhi of Chicago Volunteer Legal Services.

In the absence of that form, children can be taken in by a relative or loved one who cares for them adequately, she said. When no one steps in or the caretaker does not take adequate care of them, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services might become involved.

“Only when necessary and all other options are explored, the State of Illinois can seek to have a legal guardian appointed to ensure that a youth without an adult caregiver is provided proper care and to consent to legal, medical and educational matters on the youth’s behalf,” states a DCFS brochure on support for families facing immigration challenges.

Onward Neighborhood House is one of many local organizations that have contacted Chicago Volunteer Legal Services for workshops on short-term guardianship forms this year.

Nearly 200 people have attended these workshops or met with case managers since then, said Jonathan Barrera, coordinator at the Illinois Welcoming Center, which is affiliated with Onward Neighborhood House.

Before January, Barrera had never even heard of short-term guardianships. Now he knows of dozens of families that have sought case managers to set one up.

Others have opted to self-deport, taking their children with them to the country they once fled, due to fears of being detained by federal authorities and potentially sent to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, he said.

“That’s how bad the fear is,” Barrera said.

More than 250 Venezuelans expelled from the United States and sent to that prison earlier this year under the Trump administration have endured torture and systematic human rights violations there, according a report released earlier this month by Human Rights Watch and the human rights organization Cristosal.

Long-term consequences

At home on a recent afternoon, Delila watched a video her father sent her before his detainment and giggled at her phone.

“It’s just Pablo being Pablo,” Ramirez said, commenting on the footage Blancas-Gomez had texted his daughter sometime last month.

The video clip is Delila’s last reminder of what life was like when her family was intact.

Now she doesn’t know if her father will ever be able to return to their Chicago home.

“I know my dad’s alive but it still feels like he’s gone,” Ramirez recalled Delila telling her.

Blancas-Gomez has been living in the United States for nearly two decades, running his own business as a repairman and mechanic.

He married the mother of Delila and Ramirez, who was a U.S. citizen, and had been working toward obtaining his citizenship, Ramirez said. But when his wife died and he took on sole parenting responsibilities, that process went uncompleted, she said.

Ramirez is trying to be optimistic about the outcome without getting her, and Delila’s, hopes up.

Family separation due to immigration enforcement can take many different forms under the current administration, said Dr. C. Nicholas Cuneo, assistant professor of pediatrics and medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and executive director of HEAL Refugee Health and Asylum Collaborative.

“What I’ve encountered are families who have had one parent who has been detained and I’ve seen the impact that has had on other family members,” he said. “I’ve also seen families who are affected by vulnerable immigration or unstable immigration status — asylum pending even. They are living in fear and that is impacting the child.”

He has also seen cases where a parent wonders if they should send their U.S. citizen children to live in the care of relatives in their home country, to avoid forcible separation.

A family’s planning for emergency detention or deportation becomes even more complicated when children have special health needs or require complex medical care, especially if the primary caregiver is the only person who has the training and knowledge to adequately care for those conditions, he added.

“So the threat of detention for that primary caregiver can have potentially devastating consequences for that child if there’s nobody else who’s been trained or designated as an alternative guardian,” he said.

The ongoing family separation crisis in many ways mirrors the “zero-tolerance” era of the first Trump administration, said Kribs of The Young Center.

Kribs described the “profound and traumatic impact” this policy has had on families.

“Parents and children are living through the same separation today, every day,” though these separations are now unfolding inside the country instead of at the border, Kribs said.

Research shows children who endure family separation as a result of immigration enforcement often suffer from greater depression and anxiety symptoms as well as behavioral problems and difficulty concentrating in school, said Jodi Berger Cardoso, professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work.

Other factors can compound that trauma including having a parent or caregiver detained in the presence of the child or prior exposure to traumatic events, she said.

Sometimes in order to reunite with deported parents, children are forced to move to another country they’ve never lived in, and there can be negative social and emotional consequences to this upheaval as well, Cardoso said.

“When you expose children to ongoing stress and trauma during critical periods of development like childhood and adolescence, it increases their vulnerability for mental health problems in the present but also across the life cycle,” she said. “So we’re changing trajectories possibly of children’s lives based on the policy decisions we’re making now.” ]]> 1379022 2025-11-25T11:03:08+00:00 2025-11-25T11:03:16+00:00 https://www.thenewsherald.com/2025/06/30/a-more-defensive-pride-activists-say-celebrations-are-more-critical-as-us-conservative-states-rescind-lgbtq-protections/ Mon, 30 Jun 2025 16:54:59 +0000 https://www.thenewsherald.com/2025/06/30/a-more-defensive-pride-activists-say-celebrations-are-more-critical-as-us-conservative-states-rescind-lgbtq-protections/ Christopher Colwell of Valparaiso, Indiana, teared up a bit as his grandmother sang with her church choir during Northwest Indiana Pridefest earlier this month, calling the moment a haven of acceptance in a state and nation that’s become increasingly hostile to queer men like him.

The grandson and grandma briefly embraced after her performance on a stage adorned with rainbow-colored balloons and a giant Pride flag.

“I can’t stand the current climate in this state. It don’t represent its people anymore,” said Colwell, 25, at the June 8 event at Riverview Park in Lake Station. “I have a really poor outlook on the country as a whole.”

While Pride events in the past were largely celebrations of the rights the LGBTQ community has secured — as well as promotions for greater representation and acceptance — many activists say the focus this year has been on girding protections and freedoms that are being actively rolled back on the federal level as well as in many Republican-led states such as Indiana.

“For the LGBTQ community, there’s a lot of anxiety about the rights that we have and are they going to stick around much longer?” said the Rev. Leah Peksenak, president of NWI Pridefest Inc. and pastor of two northwest Indiana churches. “It’s less about let’s celebrate what we have and try to push for more. Now it’s like, we might have to really dig in our heels and refuse to relinquish what we’ve already won. Because we’re not going backward.”

This is in stark contrast to more liberal states such as Illinois, which have been strengthening LGBTQ rights and protections in the face of a national movement to rescind many of them.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul earlier this month filed an amicus brief, along with 20 other states, defending a Michigan law that bars health officials from practicing so-called conversion therapy on LGBTQ children. He’s also spoken out against a Trump administration attempt to ban transgender military service and change to the passport application process, arguing they harm transgender and nonbinary Americans.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has publicly pledged to protect the community’s rights, as well.

“I’ve been marching for LGBTQ+ rights since Pride was considered a protest,” Pritzker posted on Facebook earlier this month, kicking off a series of Pride events statewide that culminated with the iconic Chicago Pride Parade in the Northalsted neighborhood Sunday. “And I’ll continue to march under this administration as a recommitment to the fight for equality today. No matter who you are or who you love, you have a home here in Illinois.”

Although Indiana has always been more conservative in terms of LGBTQ protections, Peksenak has seen more brazenness in the language and policymaking of elected officials in recent months.

A few days before the northwest Indiana Pride event, Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith posted a “Pride month alert” on the social media site X, warning parents that “the rainbow beast is coming for your kids!”

“Corporate America and government institutions are launching their annual siege on childhood innocence — and this year’s Pride Month agenda is more aggressive than ever,” the message said.

Many LGBTQ groups were outraged a few months ago, when Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita made an April Fools’ Day post joking that “The Left wins. … They have finally brainwashed me,” while standing beside a Pride flag.

In March, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun signed a pair of executive orders targeting “extreme gender ideology.”

One barred transgender women and girls from participating in women and girls sports in Indiana schools; the other declared that there are only two genders. Both mirrored similar executive orders signed by President Donald Trump.

Out Leadership’s annual State LGBTQ+ Business Climate Index released this month found Illinois to have among the strongest protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and other queer residents, while Indiana was one of the lowest-ranked states in the nation.

The global LGBTQ rights organization’s state-by-state report showed great disparity across the country, with the nation as a whole growing more discriminatory — and divided — when it comes to LGBTQ rights and safeguards compared to previous years.

“Political polarization is widening, and following the 2024 elections, a new wave of anti-LGBTQ+ laws is sweeping the nation,” the report stated.

Logan Casey, director of policy research for the national nonprofit think tank Movement Advancement Project, said the result is often vastly different freedoms and levels of safety for LGBTQ folks, depending on the part of the country where they live, work or visit.

“There is a very dramatic and clear difference from one state to the next when it comes to LGBTQ policies and protections — so a real patchwork,” he said. “In a sense, there are two different Americas for LGBTQ people.”

‘Freedom isn’t linear’

Colwell’s grandmother, 70-year-old Maggie Reister, said she was proud to perform at the local Pridefest with fellow worshippers from her Unitarian church, particularly amid such a tumultuous time in history for many LGBTQ folks.

“I know my grandson and his friends are afraid. They’re more afraid now,” she said. “I know bad things happen, they’ve always happened, but I think they’re more afraid.”

Years ago, Reister attended rallies and protests demanding that governments legalize gay marriage. Then in 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that states couldn’t deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples, a decision that seemed to mark a turning point for the nation, she recalled.

Thursday marked the 10th anniversary of the landmark decision.

Yet now, Reister fears the hard-earned rights and protections for the LGBTQ community are slowly slipping away in large swaths of the country.

“I think the conservative faction is more emboldened,” she added.

Anti-LGBTQ legislation and rhetoric by politicians have a trickle-down effect, which can encourage broader discrimination by the public and discourage allies from showing support, said Peksenak, who is affectionately nicknamed “the Rainbow Rev.”

The pastor said Pridefest organizers in northwest Indiana last year received one violent threat, which was frightening but the lone incident. This year, organizers received several similar messages in the run-up to the event, Peksenak said.

“Because of politics on a national scale, there just seems to be more and more permission for actual people to be loudly hateful, even just between last year and this year,” Peksenak said. “So there seems to be more vitriol.”

Like many other Pride events nationwide, the northwest Indiana festival faced a recent financial crisis when corporate sponsors who had pledged funding dropped out following Trump’s election in November.

“After the election results, they pulled out. Overnight,” Peksenak said. “They all closed ranks. And they didn’t say it was because of the election. They didn’t say it was because of blowback. They said things like ‘Oh, it’s just not in the budget this year.’ But we’re not stupid.”

Going into June, San Francisco Pride had faced a $200,000 budget gap after corporate sponsors withdrew their support; KC Pride in Kansas City, Missouri, lost about $200,000, which was about half its annual budget, according to The Associated Press.

Anheuser-Busch dropped its sponsorship of PrideFest in St. Louis after 30 years of support, leaving organizers with a $150,000 budget shortfall.

Several events nationwide had to scale back their celebrations because of a loss of funding; in some cases, organizers said corporate sponsors asked to remain anonymous.

“If you come to Pride this year, that’s a revolutionary act,” said Suzanne Ford, executive director of San Francisco Pride. “You are sending a message to those in Washington that, here in San Francisco, we still have the same values that we’ve always had — you can love who you love here. We’re not going to retreat from that.”

In northwest Indiana, organizers had to scramble to find new sponsors: An interfaith coalition of local churches and synagogues teamed up to raise events funds, each committing about $1,000 to $2,500, along with several steadfast local businesses, Peksenak said.

“Since November has been a really rude awakening,” the pastor added. “There is a general sense across the whole community that, oh wait, freedom isn’t linear. We can lose ground. And we actually have to work and engage to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

To stay or leave?

Colwell said he has no plans to leave Indiana, despite the rhetoric and policies of many of its officials.

He cited his supportive local family and friends as part of his reason for staying. Reister added that she loves her northwest Indiana church and much of the greater community, which share her commitment to LGBTQ freedoms and safety.

While state laws can differ vastly, Casey of the Movement Advancement Project noted that the lived experience of individual LGBTQ folks and their loved ones can often vary by community, neighborhood or sections of a state.

Prejudice still exists in states with pro-LGBTQ policies; states with fewer protections might have cities or municipalities with thriving LGBTQ resources and legal safeguards, he added.

“There is absolutely a polarization in the policy environment for LGBTQ people right now,” said Elana Redfield, federal policy director at the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law. “But I would be hesitant to characterize any state as clearly pro-LGBTQ or anti-LGBTQ. Because on the one hand, many states have really strong policy elements but still have local or regional elements that might not be quite so supportive.”

The opposite can also be true: Redfield recalled recently speaking at an event in Indianapolis, where she noticed that even the roadside billboards grew more progressive as she left rural areas of Indiana and headed into the more liberal-leaning capital. There, she received a warm reception with engaging conversation about LGBTQ issues.

But discriminatory language by politicians and anti-LGBTQ policies can translate to real harm for individuals, including affecting their mental health, she said.

“Right now, we have this exacerbation of official language that is dismissive … of LGBTQ experiences and in some cases outright exclusionary,” she said. “Our research does show that anti-LGBTQ policy debates can have a real, measurable negative impact on mental health.”

There can be an enormous emotional cost “that comes from having your right to marry being debated or whether you have a right to exist or not being debated — or whether you can play sports or whether you can access a bathroom,” she added.

A Williams Institute survey of roughly 300 transgender, nonbinary and gender diverse American adults released in May found that nearly half have already moved or wanted to move to “more affirming places” within the United States, while 45% of those polled desired to leave the country. Most of the respondents cited anti-LGBTQ policies as the reason for wanting to move.

This is a troubling trend to Casey.

“It’s easy for a lot of people to think, ‘Well you should move somewhere else where the laws are better,’” he said. “While that obviously makes sense in a way, the larger point is that people shouldn’t be forced to choose between the place that they call home and their rights or protections.”

But he says that’s the quandary facing many LGBTQ folks and their loved ones nationwide, particularly in much of the South and Midwest.

“Those are choices that our politicians are making to force those sorts of really impossible life decisions for so many people,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The grandson and grandma briefly embraced after her performance on a stage adorned with rainbow-colored balloons and a giant Pride flag.

“I can’t stand the current climate in this state. It don’t represent its people anymore,” said Colwell, 25, at the June 8 event at Riverview Park in Lake Station. “I have a really poor outlook on the country as a whole.”

While Pride events in the past were largely celebrations of the rights the LGBTQ community has secured — as well as promotions for greater representation and acceptance — many activists say the focus this year has been on girding protections and freedoms that are being actively rolled back on the federal level as well as in many Republican-led states such as Indiana.

“For the LGBTQ community, there’s a lot of anxiety about the rights that we have and are they going to stick around much longer?” said the Rev. Leah Peksenak, president of NWI Pridefest Inc. and pastor of two northwest Indiana churches. “It’s less about let’s celebrate what we have and try to push for more. Now it’s like, we might have to really dig in our heels and refuse to relinquish what we’ve already won. Because we’re not going backward.”

This is in stark contrast to more liberal states such as Illinois, which have been strengthening LGBTQ rights and protections in the face of a national movement to rescind many of them.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul earlier this month filed an amicus brief, along with 20 other states, defending a Michigan law that bars health officials from practicing so-called conversion therapy on LGBTQ children. He’s also spoken out against a Trump administration attempt to ban transgender military service and change to the passport application process, arguing they harm transgender and nonbinary Americans.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has publicly pledged to protect the community’s rights, as well.

“I’ve been marching for LGBTQ+ rights since Pride was considered a protest,” Pritzker posted on Facebook earlier this month, kicking off a series of Pride events statewide that culminated with the iconic Chicago Pride Parade in the Northalsted neighborhood Sunday. “And I’ll continue to march under this administration as a recommitment to the fight for equality today. No matter who you are or who you love, you have a home here in Illinois.”

Although Indiana has always been more conservative in terms of LGBTQ protections, Peksenak has seen more brazenness in the language and policymaking of elected officials in recent months.

A few days before the northwest Indiana Pride event, Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith posted a “Pride month alert” on the social media site X, warning parents that “the rainbow beast is coming for your kids!”

“Corporate America and government institutions are launching their annual siege on childhood innocence — and this year’s Pride Month agenda is more aggressive than ever,” the message said.

Many LGBTQ groups were outraged a few months ago, when Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita made an April Fools’ Day post joking that “The Left wins. … They have finally brainwashed me,” while standing beside a Pride flag.

In March, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun signed a pair of executive orders targeting “extreme gender ideology.”

One barred transgender women and girls from participating in women and girls sports in Indiana schools; the other declared that there are only two genders. Both mirrored similar executive orders signed by President Donald Trump.

Out Leadership’s annual State LGBTQ+ Business Climate Index released this month found Illinois to have among the strongest protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and other queer residents, while Indiana was one of the lowest-ranked states in the nation.

The global LGBTQ rights organization’s state-by-state report showed great disparity across the country, with the nation as a whole growing more discriminatory — and divided — when it comes to LGBTQ rights and safeguards compared to previous years.

“Political polarization is widening, and following the 2024 elections, a new wave of anti-LGBTQ+ laws is sweeping the nation,” the report stated.

Logan Casey, director of policy research for the national nonprofit think tank Movement Advancement Project, said the result is often vastly different freedoms and levels of safety for LGBTQ folks, depending on the part of the country where they live, work or visit.

“There is a very dramatic and clear difference from one state to the next when it comes to LGBTQ policies and protections — so a real patchwork,” he said. “In a sense, there are two different Americas for LGBTQ people.”

‘Freedom isn’t linear’

Colwell’s grandmother, 70-year-old Maggie Reister, said she was proud to perform at the local Pridefest with fellow worshippers from her Unitarian church, particularly amid such a tumultuous time in history for many LGBTQ folks.

“I know my grandson and his friends are afraid. They’re more afraid now,” she said. “I know bad things happen, they’ve always happened, but I think they’re more afraid.”

Years ago, Reister attended rallies and protests demanding that governments legalize gay marriage. Then in 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that states couldn’t deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples, a decision that seemed to mark a turning point for the nation, she recalled.

Thursday marked the 10th anniversary of the landmark decision.

Yet now, Reister fears the hard-earned rights and protections for the LGBTQ community are slowly slipping away in large swaths of the country.

“I think the conservative faction is more emboldened,” she added.

Anti-LGBTQ legislation and rhetoric by politicians have a trickle-down effect, which can encourage broader discrimination by the public and discourage allies from showing support, said Peksenak, who is affectionately nicknamed “the Rainbow Rev.”

The pastor said Pridefest organizers in northwest Indiana last year received one violent threat, which was frightening but the lone incident. This year, organizers received several similar messages in the run-up to the event, Peksenak said.

“Because of politics on a national scale, there just seems to be more and more permission for actual people to be loudly hateful, even just between last year and this year,” Peksenak said. “So there seems to be more vitriol.”

Like many other Pride events nationwide, the northwest Indiana festival faced a recent financial crisis when corporate sponsors who had pledged funding dropped out following Trump’s election in November.

“After the election results, they pulled out. Overnight,” Peksenak said. “They all closed ranks. And they didn’t say it was because of the election. They didn’t say it was because of blowback. They said things like ‘Oh, it’s just not in the budget this year.’ But we’re not stupid.”

Going into June, San Francisco Pride had faced a $200,000 budget gap after corporate sponsors withdrew their support; KC Pride in Kansas City, Missouri, lost about $200,000, which was about half its annual budget, according to The Associated Press.

Anheuser-Busch dropped its sponsorship of PrideFest in St. Louis after 30 years of support, leaving organizers with a $150,000 budget shortfall.

Several events nationwide had to scale back their celebrations because of a loss of funding; in some cases, organizers said corporate sponsors asked to remain anonymous.

“If you come to Pride this year, that’s a revolutionary act,” said Suzanne Ford, executive director of San Francisco Pride. “You are sending a message to those in Washington that, here in San Francisco, we still have the same values that we’ve always had — you can love who you love here. We’re not going to retreat from that.”

In northwest Indiana, organizers had to scramble to find new sponsors: An interfaith coalition of local churches and synagogues teamed up to raise events funds, each committing about $1,000 to $2,500, along with several steadfast local businesses, Peksenak said.

“Since November has been a really rude awakening,” the pastor added. “There is a general sense across the whole community that, oh wait, freedom isn’t linear. We can lose ground. And we actually have to work and engage to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

To stay or leave?

Colwell said he has no plans to leave Indiana, despite the rhetoric and policies of many of its officials.

He cited his supportive local family and friends as part of his reason for staying. Reister added that she loves her northwest Indiana church and much of the greater community, which share her commitment to LGBTQ freedoms and safety.

While state laws can differ vastly, Casey of the Movement Advancement Project noted that the lived experience of individual LGBTQ folks and their loved ones can often vary by community, neighborhood or sections of a state.

Prejudice still exists in states with pro-LGBTQ policies; states with fewer protections might have cities or municipalities with thriving LGBTQ resources and legal safeguards, he added.

“There is absolutely a polarization in the policy environment for LGBTQ people right now,” said Elana Redfield, federal policy director at the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law. “But I would be hesitant to characterize any state as clearly pro-LGBTQ or anti-LGBTQ. Because on the one hand, many states have really strong policy elements but still have local or regional elements that might not be quite so supportive.”

The opposite can also be true: Redfield recalled recently speaking at an event in Indianapolis, where she noticed that even the roadside billboards grew more progressive as she left rural areas of Indiana and headed into the more liberal-leaning capital. There, she received a warm reception with engaging conversation about LGBTQ issues.

But discriminatory language by politicians and anti-LGBTQ policies can translate to real harm for individuals, including affecting their mental health, she said.

“Right now, we have this exacerbation of official language that is dismissive … of LGBTQ experiences and in some cases outright exclusionary,” she said. “Our research does show that anti-LGBTQ policy debates can have a real, measurable negative impact on mental health.”

There can be an enormous emotional cost “that comes from having your right to marry being debated or whether you have a right to exist or not being debated — or whether you can play sports or whether you can access a bathroom,” she added.

A Williams Institute survey of roughly 300 transgender, nonbinary and gender diverse American adults released in May found that nearly half have already moved or wanted to move to “more affirming places” within the United States, while 45% of those polled desired to leave the country. Most of the respondents cited anti-LGBTQ policies as the reason for wanting to move.

This is a troubling trend to Casey.

“It’s easy for a lot of people to think, ‘Well you should move somewhere else where the laws are better,’” he said. “While that obviously makes sense in a way, the larger point is that people shouldn’t be forced to choose between the place that they call home and their rights or protections.”

But he says that’s the quandary facing many LGBTQ folks and their loved ones nationwide, particularly in much of the South and Midwest.

“Those are choices that our politicians are making to force those sorts of really impossible life decisions for so many people,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

In his first words as Pope Leo XIV, Robert Francis Prevost announced “peace be with you,” invoking a message of dialogue and care for those in need from Vatican City on Thursday.

“When I heard the news of the new Holy Father at that moment, at least here in Chicago, the sun came out,” said the Rev. Greg Sakowicz, rector of Holy Name Cathedral.

Some would say the sunny weather was just a coincidence, Sakowicz acknowledged.

But “a coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous,” he added.

Prevost’s Catholic roots were planted in Chicago’s south suburbs, where he lived in Dolton with his parents and two brothers. He grew up in St. Mary of the Assumption parish on the Far South Side, attending school there and serving as altar boy.

Marianne Angarola, 69, who was in the same class as Prevost, remembers him as a good singer who “cared about people” and “looked for the good in things.”

St. Mary’s closed and went into a state of disrepair, she said. But Angarola and others have kept up with his career, following along on the Internet for updates as he rose through the ranks of the church.

“He was the pride and joy of every priest and nun in that school,” Angarola said. “Everybody knew he was special.”

Another St. Mary’s classmate, Peggy Wurtz, remembered Prevost singing at midnight Mass with his mother, who was also a talented vocalist. Wurtz said she was intimidated by his intelligence, even in grade school. During their fifth grade science fair, Wurtz recalled being embarrassed to answer a question about her tooth decay project in front of Prevost, who was more deft in explaining his work.

“He won first prize,” Wurtz said.

The class of 1969 has an annual reunion, and she hopes they can see him at one down the line.

“I figure we should have a class reunion in Rome so he gets us all at once,” Wurtz said.

His father, Louis, was an educator who led Glenwood School District 167 and served as principal of Mount Carmel Elementary School in Chicago Heights, which was closed in 1990. He died in 1997, according to his obituary.

His mother, Mildred, was a librarian who worked at Holy Name Cathedral, Von Steuben High School on the North Side and Mendel Catholic Prep. She died in 1990, after decades of service to St. Mary’s Church.

After graduating from St. Mary’s in 1969, Prevost attended St. Augustine Seminary High School in Michigan. He briefly lived at the now-shuttered Tolentine seminary in Olympia Fields before attending Villanova University.

He was ordained a priest in Rome and studied there until 1984, shuttling between church leadership positions in Chicago and Peru until 2023.

Prevost, a longtime missionary and member of the Augustinian religious order, made his first appearance on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica on Thursday wearing the traditional red cape of the papacy.

Prevost, 69, was head of the Augustinians from 2001 to 2013, based in Rome. He also served as head of the Chicago province of the order and in 2014 was named apostolic administrator and then bishop of Chiclayo, in northern Peru in a region where the Chicago Augustinians have long had a presence.

In 2023, his predecessor, Pope Francis, named Prevost to take over the Vatican’s powerful bishops’ office that vets nominations around the globe from a retiring Canadian who had recently been accused of sexual misconduct. The critical Holy See office also investigates allegations of abuse or negligence against bishops.

“This is a historic day,” said Robert Orsi, professor of religion at Northwestern University. “Robert Francis Prevost was a favorite of Pope Francis, who made him cardinal only two years ago. The new pope’s namesake, Leo XIII, was known for his outspoken defense of the rights of working people to a living wage. By taking this name, Pope Leo XIV clearly signals his priorities. Pope Leo XIII was also profoundly wary of nationalists, especially those who would divide the church over political disputes. The Pope Leo of the early 21st century, who spent most of his 69 years outside the United States, appears already to be calling Catholics back to a truly global, truly open-hearted faith.”

Close to 100 people were at noon Mass at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago on Thursday. Near the end of the service, the rector announced who the pope was — an American-born from Chicago. The crowd erupted in applause.

Julie Bartholomae from Lincoln Park stepped outside to take a call from her sister, who was telling her the name of the pope.

Her eyes lit up when she found out the new leader of more than a billion Catholics worldwide was from Chicago.

“I think this is so exciting — a U.S. pope and he’s from Chicago,” she said.

The announcement of a new pope brought Katherine Gehl, a parishioner at Holy Name, tears of happiness. She was walking home from the gym when she heard the news and ran to Holy Name.

“It was extraordinary to be here, you know, in the presence of other Catholics,” she said. “All I all I can say is I’m just praying that this pope brings a call for unity. That’s what we need, because we have so many challenges worldwide and in division, we shall not solve them. They will only be solved in unity.”

In his first words as Pope Leo XIV, Robert Francis Prevost announced “peace be with you,” invoking a message of dialogue and care for those in need from Vatican City on Thursday.

“When I heard the news of the new Holy Father at that moment, at least here in Chicago, the sun came out,” said the Rev. Greg Sakowicz, rector of Holy Name Cathedral.

Some would say the sunny weather was just a coincidence, Sakowicz acknowledged.

But “a coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous,” he added.

Prevost’s Catholic roots were planted in Chicago’s south suburbs, where he lived in Dolton with his parents and two brothers. He grew up in St. Mary of the Assumption parish on the Far South Side, attending school there and serving as altar boy.

Marianne Angarola, 69, who was in the same class as Prevost, remembers him as a good singer who “cared about people” and “looked for the good in things.”

St. Mary’s closed and went into a state of disrepair, she said. But Angarola and others have kept up with his career, following along on the Internet for updates as he rose through the ranks of the church.

“He was the pride and joy of every priest and nun in that school,” Angarola said. “Everybody knew he was special.”

Another St. Mary’s classmate, Peggy Wurtz, remembered Prevost singing at midnight Mass with his mother, who was also a talented vocalist. Wurtz said she was intimidated by his intelligence, even in grade school. During their fifth grade science fair, Wurtz recalled being embarrassed to answer a question about her tooth decay project in front of Prevost, who was more deft in explaining his work.

“He won first prize,” Wurtz said.

The class of 1969 has an annual reunion, and she hopes they can see him at one down the line.

“I figure we should have a class reunion in Rome so he gets us all at once,” Wurtz said.

His father, Louis, was an educator who led Glenwood School District 167 and served as principal of Mount Carmel Elementary School in Chicago Heights, which was closed in 1990. He died in 1997, according to his obituary.

His mother, Mildred, was a librarian who worked at Holy Name Cathedral, Von Steuben High School on the North Side and Mendel Catholic Prep. She died in 1990, after decades of service to St. Mary’s Church.

After graduating from St. Mary’s in 1969, Prevost attended St. Augustine Seminary High School in Michigan. He briefly lived at the now-shuttered Tolentine seminary in Olympia Fields before attending Villanova University.

He was ordained a priest in Rome and studied there until 1984, shuttling between church leadership positions in Chicago and Peru until 2023.

Prevost, a longtime missionary and member of the Augustinian religious order, made his first appearance on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica on Thursday wearing the traditional red cape of the papacy.

Prevost, 69, was head of the Augustinians from 2001 to 2013, based in Rome. He also served as head of the Chicago province of the order and in 2014 was named apostolic administrator and then bishop of Chiclayo, in northern Peru in a region where the Chicago Augustinians have long had a presence.

In 2023, his predecessor, Pope Francis, named Prevost to take over the Vatican’s powerful bishops’ office that vets nominations around the globe from a retiring Canadian who had recently been accused of sexual misconduct. The critical Holy See office also investigates allegations of abuse or negligence against bishops.

“This is a historic day,” said Robert Orsi, professor of religion at Northwestern University. “Robert Francis Prevost was a favorite of Pope Francis, who made him cardinal only two years ago. The new pope’s namesake, Leo XIII, was known for his outspoken defense of the rights of working people to a living wage. By taking this name, Pope Leo XIV clearly signals his priorities. Pope Leo XIII was also profoundly wary of nationalists, especially those who would divide the church over political disputes. The Pope Leo of the early 21st century, who spent most of his 69 years outside the United States, appears already to be calling Catholics back to a truly global, truly open-hearted faith.”

Close to 100 people were at noon Mass at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago on Thursday. Near the end of the service, the rector announced who the pope was — an American-born from Chicago. The crowd erupted in applause.

Julie Bartholomae from Lincoln Park stepped outside to take a call from her sister, who was telling her the name of the pope.

Her eyes lit up when she found out the new leader of more than a billion Catholics worldwide was from Chicago.

“I think this is so exciting — a U.S. pope and he’s from Chicago,” she said.

The announcement of a new pope brought Katherine Gehl, a parishioner at Holy Name, tears of happiness. She was walking home from the gym when she heard the news and ran to Holy Name.

“It was extraordinary to be here, you know, in the presence of other Catholics,” she said. “All I all I can say is I’m just praying that this pope brings a call for unity. That’s what we need, because we have so many challenges worldwide and in division, we shall not solve them. They will only be solved in unity.”

Fully vaccinated and relatively healthy at the age of 41, Johanna Claudette of the Irving Park neighborhood thought the positive test in February 2022 wouldn’t be a big deal.

But within days, her memory became spotty. Her heart raced and she became fatigued. Today, she said, she’s still grappling with blurry vision, chest pain and brain fog — all symptoms of the chronic condition called long COVID, which can linger for months or even years after an initial infection and which has afflicted millions worldwide.

Five years ago, reports of the new and mysterious virus emanating from China gripped the globe in terror and uncertainty.

As infections spread across continents, humanity raced to better understand the novel coronavirus and prevent its proliferation, with case counts, hospitalizations and deaths climbing rapidly.

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the first in over a century. The international agency urged everyone around the globe to work together to alter the course of the virus, which had already touched 114 nations and ended more than 4,000 lives.

“Some countries are struggling with a lack of capacity. Some countries are struggling with a lack of resources. Some countries are struggling with a lack of resolve,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced that day. “All countries must strike a fine balance between protecting health, minimizing economic and social disruption, and respecting human rights.”

Days later, President Donald Trump proclaimed the virus a national emergency. Later that month, Gov. JB Pritzker issued a statewide stay-at-home order aimed at limiting viral transmission and protecting the health care system from becoming overwhelmed.

Across Illinois and the nation, school buildings were empty. Normally bustling highways and downtown corridors were barren. Restaurants, shops and entertainment venues went dark, some to never reopen.

And everyone tried to adapt to the “new normal,” as life with COVID-19 became commonly known.

As the five-year anniversary of the pandemic approaches, the threat of the virus has been drastically reduced, with low rates of transmission and hospitalization across much of the nation.

COVID-19 tests — once near impossible to find or take — are now sold at drugstores and shipped via mail. Billions have been vaccinated against the virus, an intervention Trump lauded as “one of the greatest achievements of mankind” during his first term.

Yet local medical experts and scientists caution against letting down the nation’s guard against the ever-evolving virus as well as other health epidemics — and even another potential pandemic — that might emerge in the future.

As the second Trump presidency unfolds, various local leaders and public health experts are sounding the alarm about dramatic shifts in health care policy under the new administration, from threats to cut Medicaid to attempts to slash funding for research to anti-vaccination rhetoric coming from high-level federal officials.

The state’s top health leader recently voiced grave concerns about the president’s January decision to cut ties with the World Health Organization; it was the second time Trump has done so, following his 2020 withdrawal during the height of the pandemic.

“The U.S. may lose internal access to WHO’s global surveillance system, which provides the United States, including Illinois, with early warnings of outbreaks by monitoring disease activity in more than 150 countries,” said Dr. Sameer Vohra, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, in a January letter. “Without access to this network, Illinois could lose critical time detecting threats like new COVID-19 variants, Ebola, avian influenza and more.”

The five-year battle against COVID showed the strength and ingenuity of American medical professionals and scientists, who worked quickly with others around the world to learn to detect, trace, treat and prevent the virus.

At the same time, COVID also revealed the fragility and numerous weaknesses of the nation’s public health system. Early COVID testing debacles slowed the pace of detecting and learning about the virus. Long-standing health care inequities made it harder to treat and prevent COVID. Supply chain disasters spurred a shortage of critical tests and personal protective equipment.

The pain of the pandemic is ongoing for the loved ones of the millions whose deaths have been attributed to the virus worldwide. In the first year alone, roughly 2.6 million deaths internationally were due to COVID, with more than half a million in the United States and roughly 20,000 in Illinois.

For those suffering from long COVID, the consequences of the pandemic continue today.

Claudette said she never imagined the many ways the virus would transform her life, work and relationships.

“They couldn’t understand what was happening, despite me trying to explain it to them. … It brought me to bouts of depression and frustration,” said Claudette, whose health has improved somewhat due to treatment from various physicians, therapy and rehabilitation at the Chicago-based Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. “My frustration would turn into anger and my sadness would turn into bouts of crying for a while.”

Many medical professionals will never forget how the virus ravaged their patients and threatened to collapse the health care system not so long ago.

They urge the nation to remain vigilant against emerging threats — and to not dismantle the public health strides of the past five years.

Dr. Marc Sala was working in the intensive care unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital when the pandemic began. Terrified, he and his wife, who is also a doctor, printed off copies of their living wills “in preparation for the fact that we were going to do our jobs at any cost and we wanted to make sure our family was taken care of.”

“We just went through hell,” said Sala, who is now co-director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive COVID-19 Center. “Let’s not forget all the lessons we took from this. This needs to be a learning experience for the next pandemic. If you’re thinking this is a once-in-a-100-years thing, you’re not paying attention.”

Lessons learned

Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she’ll always remember Dec. 15, 2020, the day the first COVID shots went into the arms of Chicago health care professionals. Some were moved to tears, she recalled.

“These health care workers were under extraordinary pressure and were experiencing firsthand trauma of an unprecedented nature,” said Lightfoot, who lost her reelection bid in 2023.

While the vaccine marked a turning point in the fight against the virus, Lightfoot recalled in an interview that its rollout was difficult, with local and national leaders trying to get initial doses to the most vulnerable populations as soon as possible while also combatting vaccine hesitancy.

In recent years, public health experts have been increasingly troubled by low uptake for both the COVID shot and the seasonal flu vaccine locally as well as across the country.

Lightfoot believes this problem will worsen under the new presidential administration, which includes “a bunch of vaccine skeptics and deniers in charge of public health.”

Prominent vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in last month as the nation’s health secretary; FBI Director Kash Patel has used anti-vaccine rhetoric in promoting a supplement line on social media, encouraging followers to “Mrna detox, reverse the vaxx n get healthy.”

“They devalue the truth,” Lightfoot said. “So I can’t sound this alarm any louder than what I am: We have a potential to have an unmitigated disaster on our hands as a result of decisions that are being made already.”

Vohra, the state health department director, said Illinois has increased its preparedness to handle public health emergencies, in part due to knowledge gained during the pandemic.

In May, the state released a 33-page playbook chronicling measures to be taken in the event of a future health crisis, informed by lessons learned from COVID. The plan covers various health emergencies including infectious disease outbreaks and natural disasters, as well as chemical, biological or nuclear calamities such as accidents or acts of terrorism.

“Following a once-in-a-century event like the COVID-19 pandemic it is critical that we take the time to thoroughly study how our state responded to the emergency and seek to learn lessons that will put us in a stronger position the next time such an all-of-government response is required,” Pritzker said at the time.

But Vohra also worries about Trump administration decisions affecting public health, from severing ties with WHO to moves toward mass firings of federal employees, including those in public health.

“The public health workforce was already reeling before COVID,” he said. “Losing even more individuals is a concern.”

‘Catastrophic effects’

In March 2021, the Chicago Department of Public Health and Rush University Medical Center launched the Regional Innovative Public Health Laboratory, which focused on genome sequencing to track and trace COVID variants in Chicago.

“The vaccine strains have changed every year, and that’s informed by the sequencing data and which variants they are. That’s sort of on a population scale,” said Hannah Barbian, a virologist with the lab. “It can help on…. a finer scale too if you’re investigating an outbreak.”

The lab’s work has since expanded to analyze other pathogens, including Mpox and Candida auris, a fungus that can spread in hospitals. In 2022, the lab began a pilot project testing air samples to detect viruses, including COVID and other respiratory illnesses; the scientists also found some skin infections and gastrointestinal illnesses, Barbian said.

The partnership with the city health department means funding for the lab will likely be stable for a while, said Stefan Green, director of core lab services.

But he’s concerned about broader threats to public health funding.

“The time to maintain public health investment is when you don’t have an obvious epidemic. You want to use your resources in a way that you can detect as early as possible the next pandemic or the next epidemic,” he said. “It’s like if you have a soldier guarding a base and he’s there all day. And you’re like, well nobody invaded.… But you need somebody there all the time. Because when you do get attacked, you need someone there.”

The Trump administration has attempted to drastically slash federal funding for medical and scientific research; Rush University President Dr. Robert Higgins warned during a news conference last month that these cuts would have “catastrophic effects on research studies nationwide.”

A federal judge Wednesday blocked the cuts; lawsuits filed by a group of 22 states — including Illinois — and organizations representing universities, hospitals and research institutions across the country have argued that stripping the funding would cause “irreparable harm.”

Dr. Emily Landon, an infectious disease specialist at University of Chicago Medicine, said she is “terrified” about the nation’s ability to handle another pandemic.

She became a prominent voice in Illinois in the early days of the COVID crisis, speaking alongside the governor during a March 20, 2020 press conference when he announced the stay-at-home order for Illinois.

The nation made mistakes in the months leading up to that order, Landon said. One of the biggest, she thinks, was that U.S. leaders didn’t take big enough steps to address COVID-19 early enough; they were reactive rather than proactive.

Now Landon says she hears echoes of that same attitude, citing reactions to the ongoing measles outbreak in Texas.

Last month, Kennedy Jr. commented that measles outbreaks are “not unusual,” despite the recent death of an unvaccinated child from measles — the first U.S. measles death in a decade. His stance on vaccines, however, might have softened: In a recent Fox News opinion piece, Kennedy Jr. hailed vaccination to protect children from measles.

“They need to be able to say: ‘This is a real threat to children and immunocompromised adults. You need to take action now, and here is the action you can take,’” Landon said. “I see some evidence that we maybe haven’t learned that lesson.”

Landon first realized the potential magnitude of COVID-19 a couple months before the Illinois stay-at-home order. University of Chicago has a relationship with Wuhan University’s medical school, in ground-zero of the outbreak, and Landon saw photos sent by doctors there in which they were wearing full-body protective suits. She knew then that Chinese doctors were worried about person-to-person transmission.

But she’s concerned about the nation’s ability to understand the nature of illness outbreaks in other parts of the world going forward.

The Trump administration’s recent cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which delivers humanitarian funding overseas, threatens America’s understanding of what’s happening on the ground internationally, Landon said.

“We don’t have the same information that we usually have about what’s going on elsewhere in the world,” she said. “If we can keep outbreaks contained where they start, instead of letting them spread unfettered in places where they just don’t have the resources to contain these things, that protects Americans.”

The Associated Press contributed.

eleventis@chicagotribune.com

lschencker@chicagotribune.com

Fully vaccinated and relatively healthy at the age of 41, Johanna Claudette of the Irving Park neighborhood thought the positive test in February 2022 wouldn’t be a big deal.

But within days, her memory became spotty. Her heart raced and she became fatigued. Today, she said, she’s still grappling with blurry vision, chest pain and brain fog — all symptoms of the chronic condition called long COVID, which can linger for months or even years after an initial infection and which has afflicted millions worldwide.

Five years ago, reports of the new and mysterious virus emanating from China gripped the globe in terror and uncertainty.

As infections spread across continents, humanity raced to better understand the novel coronavirus and prevent its proliferation, with case counts, hospitalizations and deaths climbing rapidly.

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the first in over a century. The international agency urged everyone around the globe to work together to alter the course of the virus, which had already touched 114 nations and ended more than 4,000 lives.

“Some countries are struggling with a lack of capacity. Some countries are struggling with a lack of resources. Some countries are struggling with a lack of resolve,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced that day. “All countries must strike a fine balance between protecting health, minimizing economic and social disruption, and respecting human rights.”

Days later, President Donald Trump proclaimed the virus a national emergency. Later that month, Gov. JB Pritzker issued a statewide stay-at-home order aimed at limiting viral transmission and protecting the health care system from becoming overwhelmed.

Across Illinois and the nation, school buildings were empty. Normally bustling highways and downtown corridors were barren. Restaurants, shops and entertainment venues went dark, some to never reopen.

And everyone tried to adapt to the “new normal,” as life with COVID-19 became commonly known.

As the five-year anniversary of the pandemic approaches, the threat of the virus has been drastically reduced, with low rates of transmission and hospitalization across much of the nation.

COVID-19 tests — once near impossible to find or take — are now sold at drugstores and shipped via mail. Billions have been vaccinated against the virus, an intervention Trump lauded as “one of the greatest achievements of mankind” during his first term.

Yet local medical experts and scientists caution against letting down the nation’s guard against the ever-evolving virus as well as other health epidemics — and even another potential pandemic — that might emerge in the future.

As the second Trump presidency unfolds, various local leaders and public health experts are sounding the alarm about dramatic shifts in health care policy under the new administration, from threats to cut Medicaid to attempts to slash funding for research to anti-vaccination rhetoric coming from high-level federal officials.

The state’s top health leader recently voiced grave concerns about the president’s January decision to cut ties with the World Health Organization; it was the second time Trump has done so, following his 2020 withdrawal during the height of the pandemic.

“The U.S. may lose internal access to WHO’s global surveillance system, which provides the United States, including Illinois, with early warnings of outbreaks by monitoring disease activity in more than 150 countries,” said Dr. Sameer Vohra, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, in a January letter. “Without access to this network, Illinois could lose critical time detecting threats like new COVID-19 variants, Ebola, avian influenza and more.”

The five-year battle against COVID showed the strength and ingenuity of American medical professionals and scientists, who worked quickly with others around the world to learn to detect, trace, treat and prevent the virus.

At the same time, COVID also revealed the fragility and numerous weaknesses of the nation’s public health system. Early COVID testing debacles slowed the pace of detecting and learning about the virus. Long-standing health care inequities made it harder to treat and prevent COVID. Supply chain disasters spurred a shortage of critical tests and personal protective equipment.

The pain of the pandemic is ongoing for the loved ones of the millions whose deaths have been attributed to the virus worldwide. In the first year alone, roughly 2.6 million deaths internationally were due to COVID, with more than half a million in the United States and roughly 20,000 in Illinois.

For those suffering from long COVID, the consequences of the pandemic continue today.

Claudette said she never imagined the many ways the virus would transform her life, work and relationships.

“They couldn’t understand what was happening, despite me trying to explain it to them. … It brought me to bouts of depression and frustration,” said Claudette, whose health has improved somewhat due to treatment from various physicians, therapy and rehabilitation at the Chicago-based Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. “My frustration would turn into anger and my sadness would turn into bouts of crying for a while.”

Many medical professionals will never forget how the virus ravaged their patients and threatened to collapse the health care system not so long ago.

They urge the nation to remain vigilant against emerging threats — and to not dismantle the public health strides of the past five years.

Dr. Marc Sala was working in the intensive care unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital when the pandemic began. Terrified, he and his wife, who is also a doctor, printed off copies of their living wills “in preparation for the fact that we were going to do our jobs at any cost and we wanted to make sure our family was taken care of.”

“We just went through hell,” said Sala, who is now co-director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive COVID-19 Center. “Let’s not forget all the lessons we took from this. This needs to be a learning experience for the next pandemic. If you’re thinking this is a once-in-a-100-years thing, you’re not paying attention.”

Lessons learned

Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she’ll always remember Dec. 15, 2020, the day the first COVID shots went into the arms of Chicago health care professionals. Some were moved to tears, she recalled.

“These health care workers were under extraordinary pressure and were experiencing firsthand trauma of an unprecedented nature,” said Lightfoot, who lost her reelection bid in 2023.

While the vaccine marked a turning point in the fight against the virus, Lightfoot recalled in an interview that its rollout was difficult, with local and national leaders trying to get initial doses to the most vulnerable populations as soon as possible while also combatting vaccine hesitancy.

In recent years, public health experts have been increasingly troubled by low uptake for both the COVID shot and the seasonal flu vaccine locally as well as across the country.

Lightfoot believes this problem will worsen under the new presidential administration, which includes “a bunch of vaccine skeptics and deniers in charge of public health.”

Prominent vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in last month as the nation’s health secretary; FBI Director Kash Patel has used anti-vaccine rhetoric in promoting a supplement line on social media, encouraging followers to “Mrna detox, reverse the vaxx n get healthy.”

“They devalue the truth,” Lightfoot said. “So I can’t sound this alarm any louder than what I am: We have a potential to have an unmitigated disaster on our hands as a result of decisions that are being made already.”

Vohra, the state health department director, said Illinois has increased its preparedness to handle public health emergencies, in part due to knowledge gained during the pandemic.

In May, the state released a 33-page playbook chronicling measures to be taken in the event of a future health crisis, informed by lessons learned from COVID. The plan covers various health emergencies including infectious disease outbreaks and natural disasters, as well as chemical, biological or nuclear calamities such as accidents or acts of terrorism.

“Following a once-in-a-century event like the COVID-19 pandemic it is critical that we take the time to thoroughly study how our state responded to the emergency and seek to learn lessons that will put us in a stronger position the next time such an all-of-government response is required,” Pritzker said at the time.

But Vohra also worries about Trump administration decisions affecting public health, from severing ties with WHO to moves toward mass firings of federal employees, including those in public health.

“The public health workforce was already reeling before COVID,” he said. “Losing even more individuals is a concern.”

‘Catastrophic effects’

In March 2021, the Chicago Department of Public Health and Rush University Medical Center launched the Regional Innovative Public Health Laboratory, which focused on genome sequencing to track and trace COVID variants in Chicago.

“The vaccine strains have changed every year, and that’s informed by the sequencing data and which variants they are. That’s sort of on a population scale,” said Hannah Barbian, a virologist with the lab. “It can help on…. a finer scale too if you’re investigating an outbreak.”

The lab’s work has since expanded to analyze other pathogens, including Mpox and Candida auris, a fungus that can spread in hospitals. In 2022, the lab began a pilot project testing air samples to detect viruses, including COVID and other respiratory illnesses; the scientists also found some skin infections and gastrointestinal illnesses, Barbian said.

The partnership with the city health department means funding for the lab will likely be stable for a while, said Stefan Green, director of core lab services.

But he’s concerned about broader threats to public health funding.

“The time to maintain public health investment is when you don’t have an obvious epidemic. You want to use your resources in a way that you can detect as early as possible the next pandemic or the next epidemic,” he said. “It’s like if you have a soldier guarding a base and he’s there all day. And you’re like, well nobody invaded.… But you need somebody there all the time. Because when you do get attacked, you need someone there.”

The Trump administration has attempted to drastically slash federal funding for medical and scientific research; Rush University President Dr. Robert Higgins warned during a news conference last month that these cuts would have “catastrophic effects on research studies nationwide.”

A federal judge Wednesday blocked the cuts; lawsuits filed by a group of 22 states — including Illinois — and organizations representing universities, hospitals and research institutions across the country have argued that stripping the funding would cause “irreparable harm.”

Dr. Emily Landon, an infectious disease specialist at University of Chicago Medicine, said she is “terrified” about the nation’s ability to handle another pandemic.

She became a prominent voice in Illinois in the early days of the COVID crisis, speaking alongside the governor during a March 20, 2020 press conference when he announced the stay-at-home order for Illinois.

The nation made mistakes in the months leading up to that order, Landon said. One of the biggest, she thinks, was that U.S. leaders didn’t take big enough steps to address COVID-19 early enough; they were reactive rather than proactive.

Now Landon says she hears echoes of that same attitude, citing reactions to the ongoing measles outbreak in Texas.

Last month, Kennedy Jr. commented that measles outbreaks are “not unusual,” despite the recent death of an unvaccinated child from measles — the first U.S. measles death in a decade. His stance on vaccines, however, might have softened: In a recent Fox News opinion piece, Kennedy Jr. hailed vaccination to protect children from measles.

“They need to be able to say: ‘This is a real threat to children and immunocompromised adults. You need to take action now, and here is the action you can take,’” Landon said. “I see some evidence that we maybe haven’t learned that lesson.”

Landon first realized the potential magnitude of COVID-19 a couple months before the Illinois stay-at-home order. University of Chicago has a relationship with Wuhan University’s medical school, in ground-zero of the outbreak, and Landon saw photos sent by doctors there in which they were wearing full-body protective suits. She knew then that Chinese doctors were worried about person-to-person transmission.

But she’s concerned about the nation’s ability to understand the nature of illness outbreaks in other parts of the world going forward.

The Trump administration’s recent cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which delivers humanitarian funding overseas, threatens America’s understanding of what’s happening on the ground internationally, Landon said.

“We don’t have the same information that we usually have about what’s going on elsewhere in the world,” she said. “If we can keep outbreaks contained where they start, instead of letting them spread unfettered in places where they just don’t have the resources to contain these things, that protects Americans.”

The Associated Press contributed.

eleventis@chicagotribune.com

lschencker@chicagotribune.com

As gunshots rained down and throngs of terrified parade-goers ran in all directions, Dr. David Baum rushed to render aid. A couple were lying in a pool of blood. Family members frantically scooped up critically injured loved ones, carrying them away. The back of one man’s head was blown off; his son was by his side, screaming into the crowd “help him” over and over again, recalled Baum, who was attending the parade.

“I saw the kind of wounds that people only describe as wounds seen in war,” he said.

The Highland Park obstetrician doesn’t know if there can be any justice after such a heinous act, which left seven dead, four dozen injured and an entire community terrorized and upended.

But Baum said he still longs to see the shooter held accountable by the law and locked up for life.

“For those people who died and their families…they need it far more than me,” he added.

More than two years after that horrific holiday, the suspect’s trial is scheduled to begin with jury selection Monday at the Lake County Courthouse. Alleged gunman Robert Crimo III faces more than 100 charges, including 21 counts of first-degree murder — three for each person who lost their life while attending the parade. If convicted of first-degree murder, he could be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The trial is expected to be a particularly emotional one: Lake County prosecutors have said they intend to call as witnesses many of the 48 people who were wounded on July 4, 2022, when authorities say Crimo fired an AR-15-style assault rifle from a rooftop at the crowd along the parade route below.

Judge Victoria Rossetti ruled Thursday that victim witnesses can be in the courtroom during the trial, agreeing with prosecutors that their testimony wouldn’t be materially affected by hearing the testimony of others.

Prosecutors said earlier this month that victims will not testify that 24-year-old Crimo was the shooter — their testimony will center only on their experiences during the shooting and its aftermath.

Authorities have said Crimo, who is being held without bail, confessed to the shooting after he was apprehended; Rossetti has ruled that the videotaped confession is admissible in court.

Crimo’s attorney declined a Tribune request for comment on the approaching trial.

The legal proceedings have already been harrowing for so many victims, their families and shooting witnesses as well as the broader community of Highland Park, a North Shore suburb of more than 30,000 residents that’s still grappling to heal from that traumatic day.

Over the summer, Crimo refused a guilty plea worked out by his lawyers, stunning the many victims and their family members who had gathered in a packed Waukegan courtroom expecting to hear him accept responsibility.

One woman whose mother was killed in the attack had said she and others came to that hearing “in hopes that we could put this out of our minds.”

“We have the Fourth of July coming up and it will be two years,” she told the Tribune at the time. “And all I wanted was to be able to fully grieve my mom without the looming trial, knowing that he was going to spend the rest of his life in jail.”

In 2023, Crimo’s father, Robert Crimo Jr., pleaded guilty to reckless conduct for signing the affidavit that allowed his then-underage son to get a state firearm owner’s identification card. When pleading guilty, Crimo Jr. agreed that he knew of his son’s dangerous behavior before signing the paperwork.

It was considered a rare case nationwide where a parent was held accountable for the alleged crimes of a mass shooting suspect. Crimo Jr. was sentenced to 60 days in jail, 100 hours of community service and two years of probation.

The day he reported for his jail sentence, Crimo Jr. arrived at the Lake County Courthouse wearing a white T-shirt emblazoned with the words “I’m a political pawn.” The back of the shirt read “laws,” “facts” and “reality.”

In late 2023, the father was released from jail early “for good behavior” after serving less than a month, according to Lake County sheriff’s officials.

The punishment outraged Baum, who called the jail time served “a joke” and added that the father’s actions were “inexcusable.”

“I’ll never feel comfortable that the father was never properly punished,” he said. “To me, that was the injustice. We’ll see what happens with (Robert Crimo III) … Getting justice in this country has become difficult.”

Emotions of a trial

Joe Leslie was sitting on a bench watching the parade with his wife and two daughters, ages 4 and 2, when the shots rang out roughly 300 feet away.

Almost on instinct, his wife grabbed their 2-year-old and Leslie took the hand of their 4-year-old. The parents ran in the same general direction but different locations to take cover.

His wife and toddler ducked under a nearby hedge. He and his older daughter took shelter with 30 or so other terrified parade attendees in a nearby Starbucks bathroom; he told his daughter they were playing a game of hide-and-go-seek to keep her calm.

One of the 2-year-old’s little pink shoes fell off and was left behind.

“It was just absolute panic,” Leslie recalled.

The Highland Park resident said he’s frustrated that court proceedings have “dragged on this long.”

“It’s been so prolonged and protracted,” he said. “No one is going to forget this, who was involved in this. But to kind of move on psychologically… I don’t think that’s been possible with this sort of hanging over people as long as it has been.”

A trial for such a high-profile and horrendous crime can be deeply emotional in so many ways, said Susan Bandes, emeritus professor of law at DePaul University College of Law.

“Of course it’s going to be excruciating for the victims, for the family of victims, really the people of Highland Park and the greater community to, in a sense, relive this,” she said. “There will be visual reminders as well as testimony.”

Sometimes victims approach a trial anticipating they’ll find some form of closure after it’s over, which can be a dangerous assumption, said Bandes, author of the book “The Passions of Law.”

“People might believe that the trial can help them heal and that the trial can help them close the book,” she said. “But of course, if you’ve lost somebody or you’re deeply injured, you’re not really going to close the book.”

In other instances, survivors might hope to find answers from the facial expressions or the demeanor of the suspect during court proceedings, Bandes said.

Media reports have said Crimo was “staring down” victims in court, which he has denied.

“I’m hoping that people won’t go in expecting to find some answers in the eyes of the defendant, for example,” Bandes said. “You may never get that. And you may get something you want a whole lot less.”

A famous example was when Timothy McVeigh was executed and people who had lost children and other loved ones in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing went to watch the execution, Bandes noted.

“Many of them felt very traumatized because they saw nothing in his eyes,” she said. “They expected, somehow, to see something that would help them.”

Bandes urged survivors and the families of victims to prepare themselves by having “realistic expectations” going into the trial. Society typically has a deep-seated need to hold someone accountable for unleashing this kind of devastation, which tore at the fabric of the Highland Park community, she said.

“And that’s the kind of need the criminal justice system is set up to address, to try to give people a sense that this will not go unnoticed,” Bandes said. “This will not go unpunished.”

There’s also hope that a conviction and sentencing will deter similar crimes, she added.

“So a trial and a sentence, where appropriate, is meant to serve those needs,” she said. “But what worries me — and you saw this happening at the guilty plea hearing as well — people go to court and they expect to get some emotional closure that they probably are not going to get. I think it’s a false promise that can end up victimizing them all over again.”

The day after the shooting, Leslie returned to the scene to retrieve the shoe his younger daughter lost when fleeing. He found it on the ground by the hedge where his wife took cover, near a full cup of coffee she had purchased just before dropping it at the sound of gunfire.

By then, the landscape was laced with yellow crime scene barricade tape; less than 24 hours earlier, everyone had been enjoying the holiday and parade, he recalled.

“It just seemed absolutely surreal,” he said. “Just knowing that people’s lives had been changed forever by that day.”

Leslie said he’s grateful the trial is starting, although “closure” might not be the right label for the emotion he’s seeking.

“That will give people at least some satisfaction, if that’s the right word, that there could be some justice,” he said. “Grief is a gradual thing, stage by stage you kind of live with it and life sort of goes on. But it kind of feels like that process has been denied. Because for three years, there hasn’t been a resolution.”

‘I’m not the same’

Shane Selig, who volunteered to help manage the parade, returned home from the shooting covered in blood.

At one point, he was rendering aid to three victims at the same time: One person had a gunshot wound to the leg, another had been shot in the chest and the third suffered an injury that proved fatal.

“It was just a catastrophic scene. I had no concept of time,” recalled Selig, a software engineering manager trained in emergency response. “I was just trying to tackle things that were straight in front of me.”

While he’s “confident that justice will be served,” Selig said he’s not very focused on the trial.

“I know of many people in our community that need the trial to close that chapter and want to feel that kind of technical validation of justice,” he said. “To me, I know the intent of our justice system is rehabilitation or public safety. To me, when I look realistically and practically, a guilty verdict doesn’t affect my life at all.”

Selig said he’s more concerned with stopping this kind of violence from recurring.

“The threat of weapons continues to be ever-present,” he said, adding that he also advocates for mental health investments and early-intervention strategies to prevent mass shootings.

Many Highland Park residents expressed frustration that gun violence and mass shootings have continued to plague the nation, with few solutions emerging.

“The only thing that would give me comfort, at this point, would be a nationwide ban on assault weapons. That’s the only thing that would make me feel better,” said Debra Baum, wife of the obstetrician who aided victims. “I’d like for us as a nation to learn something after these tragedies. Yet it seems like we haven’t. And just to think that other families are going to go through what this community has gone through, is just a very sad state of affairs.”

She applauded Illinois for passing the Protect Illinois Communities Act, which bans the sale and distribution of certain high-powered guns and high-capacity magazines; the measure was signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker in the wake of the parade shooting, though it still faces legal challenges.

Kristen Carlson fled the shooting with about 15 to 20 other parade attendees to shelter in the backyard of her mother’s home in Highland Park. For months afterward, the sound of sirens or a whir of a helicopter were triggering; she would tense up and feel anxious, though those responses dissipated with time and therapy, she said.

Part of her wants to avoid news of the trial because “I don’t want to keep reliving that day,” she said.

“Of course I want justice. I don’t think anyone should be allowed to get away with taking anyone else’s life and terrifying all those people who will never be the same, even if they weren’t physically hurt,” she said. “The people who had to see that will never be the same. I didn’t even see it, but I saw the horror on people’s faces. And I’m not the same.”

Carlson said she’s still trying to process the terror of that day’s violence. Yet she’s also overwhelmed by how many strangers rendered aid, cared for the vulnerable or offered a safe place for others to hide.

“There was only one person that day with evil in his heart,” she said. “There were hundreds of people who stood up for their fellow man and protected people that they didn’t even know. It can be true that we saw evil that day. And it can be true that we saw good.”

eleventis@chicagotribune.com

As gunshots rained down and throngs of terrified parade-goers ran in all directions, Dr. David Baum rushed to render aid. A couple were lying in a pool of blood. Family members frantically scooped up critically injured loved ones, carrying them away. The back of one man’s head was blown off; his son was by his side, screaming into the crowd “help him” over and over again, recalled Baum, who was attending the parade.

“I saw the kind of wounds that people only describe as wounds seen in war,” he said.

The Highland Park obstetrician doesn’t know if there can be any justice after such a heinous act, which left seven dead, four dozen injured and an entire community terrorized and upended.

But Baum said he still longs to see the shooter held accountable by the law and locked up for life.

“For those people who died and their families…they need it far more than me,” he added.

More than two years after that horrific holiday, the suspect’s trial is scheduled to begin with jury selection Monday at the Lake County Courthouse. Alleged gunman Robert Crimo III faces more than 100 charges, including 21 counts of first-degree murder — three for each person who lost their life while attending the parade. If convicted of first-degree murder, he could be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The trial is expected to be a particularly emotional one: Lake County prosecutors have said they intend to call as witnesses many of the 48 people who were wounded on July 4, 2022, when authorities say Crimo fired an AR-15-style assault rifle from a rooftop at the crowd along the parade route below.

Judge Victoria Rossetti ruled Thursday that victim witnesses can be in the courtroom during the trial, agreeing with prosecutors that their testimony wouldn’t be materially affected by hearing the testimony of others.

Prosecutors said earlier this month that victims will not testify that 24-year-old Crimo was the shooter — their testimony will center only on their experiences during the shooting and its aftermath.

Authorities have said Crimo, who is being held without bail, confessed to the shooting after he was apprehended; Rossetti has ruled that the videotaped confession is admissible in court.

Crimo’s attorney declined a Tribune request for comment on the approaching trial.

The legal proceedings have already been harrowing for so many victims, their families and shooting witnesses as well as the broader community of Highland Park, a North Shore suburb of more than 30,000 residents that’s still grappling to heal from that traumatic day.

Over the summer, Crimo refused a guilty plea worked out by his lawyers, stunning the many victims and their family members who had gathered in a packed Waukegan courtroom expecting to hear him accept responsibility.

One woman whose mother was killed in the attack had said she and others came to that hearing “in hopes that we could put this out of our minds.”

“We have the Fourth of July coming up and it will be two years,” she told the Tribune at the time. “And all I wanted was to be able to fully grieve my mom without the looming trial, knowing that he was going to spend the rest of his life in jail.”

In 2023, Crimo’s father, Robert Crimo Jr., pleaded guilty to reckless conduct for signing the affidavit that allowed his then-underage son to get a state firearm owner’s identification card. When pleading guilty, Crimo Jr. agreed that he knew of his son’s dangerous behavior before signing the paperwork.

It was considered a rare case nationwide where a parent was held accountable for the alleged crimes of a mass shooting suspect. Crimo Jr. was sentenced to 60 days in jail, 100 hours of community service and two years of probation.

The day he reported for his jail sentence, Crimo Jr. arrived at the Lake County Courthouse wearing a white T-shirt emblazoned with the words “I’m a political pawn.” The back of the shirt read “laws,” “facts” and “reality.”

In late 2023, the father was released from jail early “for good behavior” after serving less than a month, according to Lake County sheriff’s officials.

The punishment outraged Baum, who called the jail time served “a joke” and added that the father’s actions were “inexcusable.”

“I’ll never feel comfortable that the father was never properly punished,” he said. “To me, that was the injustice. We’ll see what happens with (Robert Crimo III) … Getting justice in this country has become difficult.”

Emotions of a trial

Joe Leslie was sitting on a bench watching the parade with his wife and two daughters, ages 4 and 2, when the shots rang out roughly 300 feet away.

Almost on instinct, his wife grabbed their 2-year-old and Leslie took the hand of their 4-year-old. The parents ran in the same general direction but different locations to take cover.

His wife and toddler ducked under a nearby hedge. He and his older daughter took shelter with 30 or so other terrified parade attendees in a nearby Starbucks bathroom; he told his daughter they were playing a game of hide-and-go-seek to keep her calm.

One of the 2-year-old’s little pink shoes fell off and was left behind.

“It was just absolute panic,” Leslie recalled.

The Highland Park resident said he’s frustrated that court proceedings have “dragged on this long.”

“It’s been so prolonged and protracted,” he said. “No one is going to forget this, who was involved in this. But to kind of move on psychologically… I don’t think that’s been possible with this sort of hanging over people as long as it has been.”

A trial for such a high-profile and horrendous crime can be deeply emotional in so many ways, said Susan Bandes, emeritus professor of law at DePaul University College of Law.

“Of course it’s going to be excruciating for the victims, for the family of victims, really the people of Highland Park and the greater community to, in a sense, relive this,” she said. “There will be visual reminders as well as testimony.”

Sometimes victims approach a trial anticipating they’ll find some form of closure after it’s over, which can be a dangerous assumption, said Bandes, author of the book “The Passions of Law.”

“People might believe that the trial can help them heal and that the trial can help them close the book,” she said. “But of course, if you’ve lost somebody or you’re deeply injured, you’re not really going to close the book.”

In other instances, survivors might hope to find answers from the facial expressions or the demeanor of the suspect during court proceedings, Bandes said.

Media reports have said Crimo was “staring down” victims in court, which he has denied.

“I’m hoping that people won’t go in expecting to find some answers in the eyes of the defendant, for example,” Bandes said. “You may never get that. And you may get something you want a whole lot less.”

A famous example was when Timothy McVeigh was executed and people who had lost children and other loved ones in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing went to watch the execution, Bandes noted.

“Many of them felt very traumatized because they saw nothing in his eyes,” she said. “They expected, somehow, to see something that would help them.”

Bandes urged survivors and the families of victims to prepare themselves by having “realistic expectations” going into the trial. Society typically has a deep-seated need to hold someone accountable for unleashing this kind of devastation, which tore at the fabric of the Highland Park community, she said.

“And that’s the kind of need the criminal justice system is set up to address, to try to give people a sense that this will not go unnoticed,” Bandes said. “This will not go unpunished.”

There’s also hope that a conviction and sentencing will deter similar crimes, she added.

“So a trial and a sentence, where appropriate, is meant to serve those needs,” she said. “But what worries me — and you saw this happening at the guilty plea hearing as well — people go to court and they expect to get some emotional closure that they probably are not going to get. I think it’s a false promise that can end up victimizing them all over again.”

The day after the shooting, Leslie returned to the scene to retrieve the shoe his younger daughter lost when fleeing. He found it on the ground by the hedge where his wife took cover, near a full cup of coffee she had purchased just before dropping it at the sound of gunfire.

By then, the landscape was laced with yellow crime scene barricade tape; less than 24 hours earlier, everyone had been enjoying the holiday and parade, he recalled.

“It just seemed absolutely surreal,” he said. “Just knowing that people’s lives had been changed forever by that day.”

Leslie said he’s grateful the trial is starting, although “closure” might not be the right label for the emotion he’s seeking.

“That will give people at least some satisfaction, if that’s the right word, that there could be some justice,” he said. “Grief is a gradual thing, stage by stage you kind of live with it and life sort of goes on. But it kind of feels like that process has been denied. Because for three years, there hasn’t been a resolution.”

‘I’m not the same’

Shane Selig, who volunteered to help manage the parade, returned home from the shooting covered in blood.

At one point, he was rendering aid to three victims at the same time: One person had a gunshot wound to the leg, another had been shot in the chest and the third suffered an injury that proved fatal.

“It was just a catastrophic scene. I had no concept of time,” recalled Selig, a software engineering manager trained in emergency response. “I was just trying to tackle things that were straight in front of me.”

While he’s “confident that justice will be served,” Selig said he’s not very focused on the trial.

“I know of many people in our community that need the trial to close that chapter and want to feel that kind of technical validation of justice,” he said. “To me, I know the intent of our justice system is rehabilitation or public safety. To me, when I look realistically and practically, a guilty verdict doesn’t affect my life at all.”

Selig said he’s more concerned with stopping this kind of violence from recurring.

“The threat of weapons continues to be ever-present,” he said, adding that he also advocates for mental health investments and early-intervention strategies to prevent mass shootings.

Many Highland Park residents expressed frustration that gun violence and mass shootings have continued to plague the nation, with few solutions emerging.

“The only thing that would give me comfort, at this point, would be a nationwide ban on assault weapons. That’s the only thing that would make me feel better,” said Debra Baum, wife of the obstetrician who aided victims. “I’d like for us as a nation to learn something after these tragedies. Yet it seems like we haven’t. And just to think that other families are going to go through what this community has gone through, is just a very sad state of affairs.”

She applauded Illinois for passing the Protect Illinois Communities Act, which bans the sale and distribution of certain high-powered guns and high-capacity magazines; the measure was signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker in the wake of the parade shooting, though it still faces legal challenges.

Kristen Carlson fled the shooting with about 15 to 20 other parade attendees to shelter in the backyard of her mother’s home in Highland Park. For months afterward, the sound of sirens or a whir of a helicopter were triggering; she would tense up and feel anxious, though those responses dissipated with time and therapy, she said.

Part of her wants to avoid news of the trial because “I don’t want to keep reliving that day,” she said.

“Of course I want justice. I don’t think anyone should be allowed to get away with taking anyone else’s life and terrifying all those people who will never be the same, even if they weren’t physically hurt,” she said. “The people who had to see that will never be the same. I didn’t even see it, but I saw the horror on people’s faces. And I’m not the same.”

Carlson said she’s still trying to process the terror of that day’s violence. Yet she’s also overwhelmed by how many strangers rendered aid, cared for the vulnerable or offered a safe place for others to hide.

“There was only one person that day with evil in his heart,” she said. “There were hundreds of people who stood up for their fellow man and protected people that they didn’t even know. It can be true that we saw evil that day. And it can be true that we saw good.”

eleventis@chicagotribune.com