Again it was a young man, again there are signs of the crime on the internet, again he used a weapon with which one can quickly kill many people – and which he had probably acquired legally.

A video recording from Monday evening shows the arrest of the 21-year-old alleged perpetrator on a street about fifteen minutes from the crime scene.

About eight hours earlier, from a rooftop, he had aimed at visitors to a National Day parade in the town of Highland Park near Chicago, killing at least six people and injuring 26.

Sofia Dreisbach

North American political correspondent based in Washington.

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"We believe this person is responsible for the incident," a spokesman for the county's criminal investigators said after the arrest.

The investigation was ongoing and charges would therefore only be brought at a later date.

The mug shot showed a young man with black hair and tattoos on his neck and face.

The man, who also appeared as a musician on the Internet under the name "Awake the Rapper", published, among other things, a video entitled "Are you Awake" (Are you awake), which shows him as a cartoon character being attacked, in combat gear and with gun.

One line reads, "I just have to do it, it's my destiny." In another video, titled "Toy Soldier," a similar cartoon character lies face down in a pool of blood, surrounded by police officers, guns drawn.

"How does someone get so hateful?"

The young man's motive is not yet known.

The act is similar to that in Buffalo in May, when an 18-year-old man shot ten people with a semi-automatic rifle in a supermarket -- and in Uvalde, when an 18-year-old killed 19 elementary school students and two teachers with the same gun.

As his uncle reported to CNN, the alleged Highland Park perpetrator lived in his own apartment behind his father's house.

He saw his nephew on Sunday and didn't notice anything unusual.

Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering said after the arrest that she knew him as a child.

He was in the Boy Scout group that led them.

"He was just a little boy." However, his posts online revealed a "long-held plan and desire to cause a bloodbath."

It's one of those moments when you ask yourself, 'What happened?

How does someone become such an angry, hateful person?”

Dozens of gunshots can be heard in one of the parade attendees' videos, while another shows people fleeing in panic.

Many later reported that they first thought the noise was fireworks or gun salutes from parade participants.

A doctor who provided first aid after the attack told CNN of "unspeakable" injuries "from the force of that gun and bullets."

Among those killed are Jacki Sundheim, a worker at a Jewish community in Glencoe, and Nicholas Toledo, 78, a Mexican man who moved from Mexico to his family in Illinois two months ago.

President Joe Biden said he was "shocked" by the attack in Highland Park on Monday night.

He will not give up fighting the "epidemic of gun violence".

The president has just signed a law that, among other things, provides for a more detailed background check on gun buyers under the age of 21.

The lengthy compromise with the Republicans, however, does not include a ban on the purchase of semi-automatic rifles for those under 21, as the President had called for after Buffalo and Uvalde.

Mayor Rotering said after the attack in Highland Park, the focus now must be "that there are no weapons of war on our streets that people can legally buy and then shoot dozens with."

It must become more difficult to “cause a bloodbath”.