Surrounded by a family of dozens, 78-year-old Nicholas Toledo sat on his pedestrian to watch the gunshot Monday Highland Park parade.
“We all threw ourselves on the ground,” his daughter, Josefina Toledo, told The Daily Beast. “Dad, it’s hard to walk … he was sitting in a walker and was hit on his back and his head.”
Eight fathers, who recently became great-grandfathers, were immediately killed. One in six people was killed in a rooftop sniper massacre.
The parade is a family tradition, and after the march, the clans gather at the family’s home and continue to celebrate the holidays, said Josefina.
“When the sudden shootout began, we were all very happy waiting for the parade,” she said.
Among the dozens of people injured by bullets from powerful rifles was one boyfriend of Josefina’s niece. He is hospitalized in a stable condition, but faces surgery to remove a bullet near his lungs.
“There is no safe place anymore,” she said.
Family and Nicholas Toledo.
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Family and Nicholas Toledo.
Courtesy of Josefina Toledo
After living in a small town in Morelos, Mexico, her father moved to the United States with his son in the mid-1980s looking for a job, and then returned to his hometown to enjoy the golden age.
He returned to Illinois three months ago and made a long-term visit with his large family in Highland Park.
Josefina Toledo told The Beast that her dad was the happiest when boating, fishing and hunting in the small town of Nexpa. Even when he lived in Illinois, his children would have taken him hunting. The family will send his body back to Mexico for burial.
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