'Chaos': Fired Highland Park rec director details trauma of July 4 mass shooting

CHICAGO — City officials in Highland Park, Ill., recently fired their former director of recreation, Chris Maliszewski, 41, who says he was unable to work after experiencing trauma after working during the mass shooting that occurred at the Chicago suburb’s Fourth of July parade in 2022, Raw Story has exclusively revealed in a new investigation.

Maliszewski says his firing is “bulls---” and is “exploring pathways to justice" including legal options. City officials confirmed he is no longer employed by Highland Park’s municipal government but declined to comment further, citing personnel confidentiality issues.

RELATED ARTICLE: Highland Park fires rec director who’s suffering from mass shooting-induced PTSD

In several exclusive interviews with Raw Story, Maliszewski shared for the first time the traumatizing memories he has from working on July 4, 2022, when Robert Crimo III allegedly killed seven people and injured at least 48 during the annual parade through the affluent town’s idyllic main street. Crimo's trial was delayed Wednesday after he changed his mind about defending himself and was assigned a public defender, ABC 7 Chicago reported.

This is how Maliszewski described his experience on the day of the shooting:

Maliszewski, then 40, arrived at 6 a.m. on July 4, 2022, at Highland Park City Hall in the north Chicago suburb. His first task: assign parking spots for floats participating in the Independence Day parade taking place later that morning.

Staff from the Park District of Highland Park begin to join Maliszewski — the then-assistant director of recreation and facilities — around 6:45 a.m., helping to finish up the parking spot assignments.

By 7:15 a.m., 35 workers — mostly high school and college students — have shown up, and Maliszewski gives a “see something, say something” talk in the absence of a police officer, who is running late.

“Never f-----g in a million years did three hours later I think we're gonna be running for our lives,” Maliszewski said.

The morning proceeds with parents dropping kids off at the floats sponsored by their swim teams and baseball teams.

A “bike and pet parade” kicks off before the main parade starts at 10 a.m.

A color guard, along with ambulances, fire trucks, squad cars and EMS vehicles with lights flashing — about half a dozen of each — are lined up to lead off the parade. Maliszewski starts sending them out, doubling back to keep the parade order flowing.

Minutes later at 10:14 a.m., Maliszewski heard gunfire.

“You could clearly hear the shots,” he recalled.

His first reaction was “who would throw fireworks at a Fourth of July parade?” Then he thought about the color guard who wouldn't even shoot blanks, he said.

A list of floats scheduled to drive the Highland Park Independence Day parade route. (Courtesy Chris Maliszewski)

Then came a second round of shots. Panic ensued.

Maliszewski, while at the start of the parade route, recalls telling a colleague alongside him to stay calm, and they began evacuating people toward the south since he thought he heard the shots coming from the northwest.

Maliszewski then started heading in the direction of the shots and got stopped by a “pure stampede,” he said.

“Family members started yelling at me for their children,” Maliszewski said. “It was just chaos. People were crying. You're seeing families running, mothers screaming, and I'm running trying to find anybody who's physically hurt.”

Maliszewski stopped to check on a young man he saw collide into a tree as he was looking back at the crowd while running. The man was bleeding, and he saw people with cuts and scratches during the stampede — fortunately, he did not see anyone shot or deceased, he said.

Maliszewski remembers bumping into Jen Freeman, a park district commissioner, who was with her young daughter and searching for her son. The memory of the little girl wearing a pink tutu brings him “some joy” amidst the tragedy, Maliszewski said.

“It's the worst feeling in the world being a parent and telling other parents you don't know where their kids are,” said Maliszewski, whose daughter and son were 7 and 5 years old, respectively, at the time.

Just about 15 minutes later, Maliszewski ended up at the Highland Park train station, which provided some shelter. He types “Highland Park” into Twitter and learns what’s happening from footage that witnesses shared of the shooting, which would end up leaving seven people dead and at least 48 injured.

A police officer pulls up and Maliszewski approaches him with his arms up. He proceeds to tell the officer that he’s been sending people south.

“I'll never forget the sound, and it still wrenches my heart,” Maliszewski said. “He was talking to me, but he was also f------ loading a shotgun.”

The police officer took off running. The Park District’s executive director, Brian Romes, pulled up on a golf cart at the train station. Another colleague who hid under the steering wheel of a Park District van while shots flew overhead also drove up “hysterical, shaken, as anybody would be,” Maliszewski said.

They decided to start moving in an effort to protect as many people as possible. Maliszewski and Romes walk to Maliszewski’s car at City Hall nearby and then drive to the Recreation Center of Highland Park, according to Maliszewski, who said he began transporting people who were sheltering at the rec center to their cars.

Romes and Maliszewski then headed toward the Parks and Golf Operations Center and Hidden Creek Aquapark. After exchanging hugs with maintenance staff who are in disbelief about what happened, Maliszewski starts tracking down his 35 staffers and workers, he said.

It’s somewhere between 10:45 and 11 a.m., Maliszewski estimates.

He learns that 22 of them have gotten in their cars and have gone home safely. The other 13 are hiding and sheltering at the homes of “perfect strangers.” Maliszewski said he decided he wouldn’t leave until he’s sure they’re out of Highland Park safely.

“Who would leave people?” Maliszewski said, getting choked up. “You just don't do that to people. At that point, I committed to staying in the community until they were all safe. I told my family that I wasn't leaving, and I had some stuff to get done.”

Romes and Maliszewski learn that a central command center is being set up in a parking lot a few hundred feet away and head over. Suddenly, there’s the sound of “fire trucks and sirens coming from all directions,” Maliszewski said.

“That's very overwhelming,” Maliszewski said, adding that at present, “if I hear significant amount of alarms, I get triggered. It's very troubling for me. It's like you're in a war zone.”

Members of the media, helicopters and the FBI start showing up too, creating a “chaotic zone,” Maliszewski said.

No suspect has yet been apprehended.

“It was legitimately like Army Rangers in tactical gear, SWAT gear, hopping off the back of Hummers and armored vehicles,” Maliszewski said. “It's just like wild, wild, wild, wild. They got machine guns, and you feel like you're in a Third World country.”

Police arrive on the scene of the Highland Park massacre. (Courtesy Chris Maliszewski)

An armored police vehicle escorted Chris Maliszewski as he and other shooting bystanders went to help rescue 13 people sheltering in nearby homes. (Courtesy Chris Maliszewski)

Maliszewski and a former fire chief who worked as a part-time safety coordinator for the Park District made a plan to get the 13 staffers sheltering in other people’s houses — escorted by a police rescue “armored vehicle.”

By the time that’s completed, four hours have passed, and it was about 2 p.m. By then, Maliszewski was aware of the death toll and the manhunt for the killer, as he’d been following the news when at the aquapark.

Maliszewski then learns that 85 to 100 people are still out in public “partying, drinking beer, grilling, swimming in the lake” at the Park District’s Rosewood Beach while authorities continue to search for the shooter.

Maliszewski and the safety coordinator volunteer to tell people the beach is closed, followed by security detail in the same “armored tank” on their drive over, he said.

They offered rides home to the beachgoers — who Maliszewski said he was shocked to learn were aware of the manhunt and still out in public — and then returned to the command center around 5 p.m., where they were asked to bring tables from the Hidden Creek Aquapark to the fire station where the Red Cross had set up. They were “flooded with fruit and sandwiches and water,” he said.

It’s not until about 5:30 p.m. that Maliszewski makes it to his home in Palatine, Ill.

“Of all the eerie drives I've had in my life, that was the eeriest drive home. For the first time, I was by myself. It was quiet,” Maliszewski said.

Maliszewski’s family was at a barbeque. He had told them he was safe and to enjoy the day instead of being glued to the news, he said.

He took a shower and had a panic attack for the first time, Maliszewski said.

“I collapsed, and I was in the fetal position,” he said.

Crimo, the shooting suspect, was arrested at 6:30 p.m.

Amy Hyndman, an officer and records supervisor for the Highland Park Police Department said, “We can’t give any information about the July 4 parade due to a gag order from the courts.” The order came from the 19th Circuit Judicial Court in Lake County, Illinois, she said.

For Maliszewski, his waking nightmare had just begun.

“My family came home, and I just did my best to put on my dad face and act like it was not a big deal,” he said. “And I didn't sleep for like three days.”