An 8-year-old boy, Cooper Roberts, is paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot in the chest during a shooting in Chicago’s Highland Park, while his twin brother was hit with shrapnel.
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Cooper Roberts, an 8-year-old boy, was shot in the chest during the Chicago Independence Day shooting and is now paralyzed from the waist down.
An eight-year-old boy who attended the Independence Day parade was shot in the chest during a shooting in Highland Park and is now paralyzed from the waist down, the family told reporters on Thursday. The boy, Cooper Roberts, suffered several significant injuries, including a severe spinal injury, while his twin brother, Luke, was struck by shrapnel.
Family spokesman Anthony Loizi told CNN that the twins liked to parade before a gunman began firing a semi-automatic rifle into the crowd from the roof. Seven people died in the incident and several others were injured, including the Roberts family.
The spokeswoman said the boys’ mother, Kelly Roberts, was “shot in the leg and leg area” and had undergone multiple surgeries. Lozzi said Cooper has had multiple surgeries since the shooting and is still unconscious in the hospital and on a ventilator. His condition is critical but stable.
“It’s going to be a new normal moving forward. It seems (like) she will have significant problems moving forward, especially with walking,” a family spokesperson said.
Loizzy said that prior to the shooting, Cooper was “a very active kid who likes soccer, riding his bike, baseball and football”.
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