0 speakers at our cross generational global mentoring event featuring women from the forbes 30 under 30 list and from our global 50 over 50 list. hillary clinton, tyra banks, jenny justin, so many more. it's going to be on and around international women's day to honor the next round of global lists, not just u.s., but europe and asia. for more information head to no knowyourvalue.com and forbes.com. it is the top of our fourth hour. 9:00 a.m. on the east coast. 8:00 in the morning in highland park, illinois, where new details are coming in about the shooting on the fourth of july. the suspect in that massacre has been charged with seven counts of first degree murder. police say she managed to flee the scene by blending into the panic stricken crowd. the mayor of highland park nancy rotering will join us in just a moment. first, let's go to tom llamas. >> reporter: good morning. seven families now dealing with the ultimate loss. even those that survived dealing with their open type of pain. this as we're learning more about disturbing incidents involving the alleged shooter in the years leading up to what happened here, leading to the question why was this young man who had made violent threats in the past able to purchase so many weapons legally? this morning, the lone gunman who police say unleashed a rooftop ambush on this fourth of july holiday parade is facing seven counts of first degree murder with more charges likely to come. police revealing they visited the home of the suspect twice before, but he was still able to legally purchase weapons afterwards. his firearm application sponsored by his father. overnight i spoke with the attorney now representing the alleged shooter's parents. >> people are upset with the alleged shooter's parents. they're telling me how did they not know something like this wasn't going to happen? >> it's easy to say now, well, the parents should have known. but the fact is that nobody knew. nobody saw anything, because there was nothing to see. >> now in custody, the 21-year-old suspect, robert crimo is talking to investigators, though they have yet to determine a motive. authorities say he arrived at the independence day celebration dressed as a woman to help hide his facial and neck tattoos and aid in his escape. >> he blended right in with everybody else. >> seven are now dead and 38 injured. investigators say his attack was several weeks in the making. in the hours after the shooting, the atf says they successfully traced thered rifle left at the scene back to the shooter. the shooter borrowed his mother's car, initially driving to wisconsin. nbc news learned he left his cell phone in that state before driving back to illinois. a tipster alerted police, who pulled him over and took him into custody. this woman who grew up with the alleged gunman described him as a loner. >> i think he was always an outsider and maybe he wanted to let the world know he didn't belong. >> witnesses to the massacre still have trouble grasping what they survived. >> i could see the shooter on the rooftop. >> david salek grabbed his loved ones and shoved them behind a metal park bench. just steps away a child and an elderly man, both of them hit. >> has it hit you how close you guys were? >> i don't want to think about that. i don't want -- i don't want to think about that. >> reporter: that father tells me that his son has not spoken about the shooting since monday, but he did tell his dad he no longer wanted to go to parades. i also want to mention that last night vice president kamala harris came out here. she took a walk, she looked right down where all this mayhem happened and she spoke with first responders that she's here to pray for highland park. >> so difficult to hear those accounts from lives changed forever. tom, i want to go back to your interview with the attorney for the parents of the alleged gunman who said there was nothing for the parents to know, they couldn't have seen. which raises the question, who then called the police back in the fall of 2019 when they came to the residence and took those swords and knives and daggers away from the young man. the parents say they didn't know anything, but who called the cops that day? >> reporter: right. the lawyer basically is telling us everyone wants to blame the parents, why didn't the parents notify authorities. the lawyer says this young man was interacting with people at work, with people at school, with teachers and no one ever said anything. that being said, we know now from police in 2019 police responded to his house because there was a report he wanted to kill himself. then later there was another call to police that he was going to, quote, kill everyone. in that incident, police ended up confiscating 16 knives, a sword and a dagger, but apparently no charges were filed. it's unclear if any paperwork was filed. later on when he goes to purchase those weapons, five guns including the assault style rifle that he used to allegedly kill all these people, there were no red flags, no warnings, no paperwork. he was able to obtain those weapons legally. that's got a lot of people here in highland park, upset about the social media videos and the incidents in 2019. and they are upset with the parents. how did they not know that their child was capable of something like this. i asked the lawyer and he said the parents didn't know he was this bad. he used the word, they didn't know he had this type of mental illness. >> nbc's tom llamas on the scene in highland park, illinois. thank you so much. mika? >> we're learning new details about those killed in monday's mass shooting, among them jacki sundayheim was a lifelong member of the north shore congregation israel and a former preschool teacher. members released a statement how jacki's work, her kindness and warmth touched us all. 64-year-old katherine goldstein was looking to get out of the house when she decided to attend the holiday parade with her daughter. her husband calls her the kindest, gentlest person you'd ever meet. irina and kevin mccarthy was a parent of the 2-year-old who was unharmed during the shooting, according to an online fund-raiser verified by go fund me. the child will be cared for by other family members, according to the fund-raising site. nicholas toledo was 78 yeas old and had nightly not wanted to go do the parade, but family members brought him along because his disabilities meant that he needs to be accompanied full-time. one family member wrote online, please hold your family members tight and appreciate every moment with your loved ones. >> you look at this, mika, the tragedy of not only mr. toledo, but of the mccarthys. the child they left behind, it's a tragedy that unfortunately we're seeing time and again, whether it's church goers being slaughters, whether it's people going to a supermarket in buffalo being slaughtered, people going to walmart in el paso being slaughtered, people going to a movie theater in colorado, children going to school in connecticut, children going to school in texas. >> joe, i read that some people were responding to this shooting like they sort of knew what to do, you know? >> yeah. >> i don't want to say they weren't surprised, but they had been training in their minds for this moment, because they hear about it so much. there's a mass shooting practically every day. it's publicized all the time when it happens in a school or when it's a large number of people. people were responding here, like, here we go, it's our turn. >> whether it's a fourth of july parade or whether it's uvalde or whether it's in buffalo or whether it's in colorado or whether it's in parkland or whether it's sandy hook, just time and time again these ar-15s, these ar style weapons, these military weapons, weapons designed for war. these are the weapons that keep showing up where our streets and our schools and our churches and synagogues are being turned into killing fields. it's not because of mental health that the mccarthys will not be with their 2-year-old child today or ever again. it's not because of mental health that mr. toledo won't be with his grandchildren ever again. it's because unlike other countries, we allow people to buy weapons of war and we allow them to buy weapons of war without really doing a significant background check, because you've got a party that's against universal background checks. you've got a party that's against regulating. a well-regulated militia? how about regulating in a serious significant way people that can buy ar-15s, people that can buy ar style weapons, people that can buy weapons designed for war. and the bigger question, why do we need these weapons in our streets? the majority of americans don't think we do. >> there are other things we don't let people buy, so i don't understand why this is somehow okay, especially to 18, 19, 20-year-olds. and, you know, i'm really tired of hearing republicans who say mental health is the problem, mitch mcconnell. we're talking about mental health. stop hiding behind something not only we're talking about, but we're doing something about. in fact, the latest gun legislation that was passed addressed mental health. there's nobody who knows more than democrats and teachers and mental health professionals and anybody who knows someone who's suffering, anybody who's on social media that mental health is a huge struggle and, yes, we need to deal with it. we need to deal with the root causes, like social media and different other reasons that information that's inappropriate just flies around the internet and into our children's phones. we understand mental health. >> mental health is a common denominator between the united states and britain, the united states and france. >> oh, they have it too, yeah. >> that's the common denominator that we all share. what don't we share? the fact that we have an extraordinary proliferation of weapons of war spreading all over this country, hundreds of millions of guns out there. the reason why? because of a lie that continues to be told to americans by gun lobbyists, by people that are seeking to make americans paranoid, suggesting the federal government is coming after them, suggesting that the police are coming after them, suggesting that the mobs are coming after them, they have to be ready for the apocalypse. they're creating their own mini apocalypse, gun manufacturers who are making millions off of these deaths. >> joining us is the mayor of highland park, illinois, nancy rotering. mayor, i know there are some 40 to 50 people who were injured. do you have any information on the injured and how they're doing and how is the community holding up? >> the community is still in just unbelievable grief and sadness. you saw that from one of your earlier speakers. the first day it was shock and now it's being processed. we are now preparing funerals. the folks who are in the hospitals, i will be reaching out to them later today. i wanted to give them some time and some space to stabilize. but to your earlier point, we came together as a community to celebrate freedom on the fourth of july. this was our first parade in two years after the pandemic. it was as joyful as a community gathering could ever be. and to see this turned around, the sick terror from somebody who grew up here. and to your other earlier point, there's no reason for him to have been able to access a weapon of war. there's no reason for the carnage that unfolded in the middle of our celebration. all of us were there. and if we weren't there, we were there in our hearts. we are feeling this ripped through our community. it's going to take a long time to heal. >> our hearts are with you and your community as well. that looked like every fourth of july parade in this country. we can't imagine what you all went through that day. i was interested to read that you had a connection to this alleged gunman. you were his cub scout leader, i think, when he was a young man. you actually ran against his father in a mayoral election. do you have any sense from talking to people in the community the last couple of days of what happened to this young man, of what drove him to this place? >> i don't know, but i can tell you when he was 6, he was a quiet little boy. clearly something has gone on in his life. i'm going to leave that to the authorities to decipher. i'm not going to give him an out for a mental health issue. i'm sorry if that's the case, but we need to take guns out of the hands of anybody who can perpetrate this kind of damage to a community. to your earlier point, england, everybody in this world has folks who have mental health challenges, who play violent video games, who may have anger management issues. we need to stop access to assault weapons. we banned large capacity magazines after sandy hook in 2013. there's no reason we should be going through this every single week. i've heard from so many mayors across the country who sent me the handbook for mayors of what to do in the wake of a mass shooting. all the kids who are on this route knew what to do because their entire lives they've been planning for some mass shooter to come into their day. that's disgusting. that's not freedom. that's a bunch of hooey. we need to take this out of our country. >> mayor, can you give us some insight on the situation where the father actually helped the son with his permit to get a gun, the father who obviously knew in 2019 that he had serious problems when the police were called and removed weapons from his home? what can you tell us about that? obviously a lot of people in the community understandably upset at that. >> right. i reached out to the illinois state police. they reconstructed the timeline. at that point, there weren't red flag laws. so it looks like there was sort of falling through the cracks within the confines of the laws that existed at that point. his father, apparently was able to sponsor his foid application. i will leave that to the authorities to follow up with him. but suffice it to say, that law needs to be changed. we've seen the beginning of that federally and statewide. but we also need to talk about, if in all of these instances people are bringing lawfully acquired weapons, those laws need to be changed. if the law is there to support the safety of the community, then we need to change those laws, because it's not doing its job. and lawfully acquired assault weapons being used, week after week of mass shootings tells me that our legal system needs to address this. >> mayor nancy rotering of lie -- highland park, illinois, thank you for being on the show this morning. >> thank you. >> we're going to speak with two county board members who were at the parade. also, as the grand jury subpoenas some special trump allies, we'll have those details. and republican mitt romney and liz cheney both warn of what would happen to the country should donald trump regain political power. we're back in a moment. tical po. we're back in a moment