Highland Park shooting survivor wants to reframe gun violence – Chicago Tribune

Good morning, Chicago.

When Emily Lieberman heard the gunshots, her first instinct was to grab her then-5-year-old daughter.

She and 13 members of her extended family were attending the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, just as they do every year. But this time, in seconds, the lively summer celebration had unraveled into a scene of terror, as the distinct popping sounds of gunfire rang through the street.

“When you hear these pops overhead, and they’re one after the other, they sound so close to you,” Lieberman said. “You have no idea how many people are shooting or where it’s coming from. All you know is that we are under attack and people are going to die, and I hope it’s not us.”

Lieberman continues to see the effects of the massacre unfold in her home, in her pediatric office and in the entire community, a place where she grew up and is raising her own children.

Now, as a mother, physician and mass shooting survivor, Lieberman is turning her experience into fuel for change through March Fourth, a foundation founded shortly after the Highland Park shooting to advocate for a federal assault rifle ban. She wants to reframe gun violence as a public health crisis and has worked nationwide to mobilize others in the medical profession to join the fight to end mass shootings.

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