WAUKESHA, Wis. — Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly tells TMJ4 in a 1-on-1 interview Thursday that he has reached out to his counterpart in Highland Park, Ill. to offer his support following the mass shooting there that left seven people dead on 4th of July.
Highland Park is just about an hour south in the northern Chicago suburbs.
Waukesha experienced something similar to the tragedy that just struck in Highland Park. In November of 2021, a man is accused of driving a vehicle down Waukesha's annual Christmas parade, killing six people and injuring 62 others. Dozens of other people were injured in Highland Park's mass shooting, in which a 22-year-old man is accused of opening fire on their July 4th parade with a high-powered rifle from the roof of a building along the route.
Mayor Reilly tells TMJ4's Tom Durian that he did reach out to the mayor of Highland Park, to offer his support and any advice when dealing with the attack's aftermath.
"We reached out to them," said Reilly. "I'm going to tell you in the 24 hours after our parade tragedy, I had over 800 emails, hundreds of phone calls, text messages - where I was really operating through. We have reached out to them to express the willingness to talk to them, to provide them input. But they are drinking through a firehose; they haven't gotten back to us. And I'm not surprised."
Reilly said Highland Park leaders will be working through intense conditions for the foreseeable future.
"It's going to be a whole week solid of getting together with all the top people, and trying to make decisions. Just down to press releases but also trying to take care of your employees and making sure you have enough employees to do stuff," the mayor said.
Mayor Reilly said he hopes Waukesha's new parade route and safety measures will comfort attendees this November.
"In order to run a parade, even before our tragedy last year, there is a lot of work that goes into it. Now there is even more work that goes into it," he said.
The mayor said that includes having very overt security-related things people see, and more covert measures that are going on behind the scenes.
The City of Waukesha also released a statement regarding the Highland Park shooting:
#WaukeshaStrong pic.twitter.com/knQQlpziiJ
— cityofwaukesha (@CityofWaukesha) July 7, 2022