RedState brought you a breaking report earlier on Monday about a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade being held in Highland Park, Illinois, outside Chicago, and shared more details later on the horrific event, which left six people killed and 31 injured. The suspect remains at-large, according to law enforcement officials.

Now, in an on-the-scene interview by Chicago TV station WLS, a father who was only expecting to spend the day enjoying the parade with his family, shares his emotional account of what happened.

He begins by explaining that he wasn’t concerned about the sounds of gunfire at first:

I thought that it was the Navy that was saluting the flag, with the rifles.

But he very quickly realized that wasn’t the case, when he started seeing people running away.

I picked up my son and started running.

I ran to a niche in one of the buildings, the local shops there, and I tried to break the glass to get in with my son. I couldn’t break it.

But then the shooting stopped, and the dad decided they needed to run again to find somewhere safe.

He started shooting again, and I ran behind the building — and i put my son in the dumpster. He’d sit there with his dog.

With his son secured, he says he went back to look for the rest of his family, who had also started running at the sound of the gunfire. The father described the devasating scene he found;

It was just horrible. I went back, and there were a few people shot, on the ground.

There was a little boy who was in….one of the police officers’ arms.

That was the worst experience ever because, you know, all I thought about was my son. And I could only imagine what that family is going through.

"I put my son in the dumpster": A father who witnessed the Highland Park parade shooting hid his son while shots were fired. https://t.co/yK1GO6PtrT pic.twitter.com/cytjhX5ExW

— ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) July 4, 2022

Join us in praying for all of the families dealing with the aftermath of the shooting, today and in the coming days.