This was the moment when a parade was shot on the 4th of July 0:55
(CNN) --
Zoe Pawelczak's dad thought the repetitive bangs going off at Highland Park's Fourth of July parade Monday morning were part of the show, she says.
But she felt that something was wrong.
"I was like, 'Dad, no...something's wrong,' and I grabbed him" and ran, Pawelczak told CNN.
The people behind them also began to run.
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"And I looked back...and then it was just this sea of panic, and people just falling and falling," he recalled.
Pawelczak was one of the witnesses who told stories of pure horror just hours after the shooting in suburban Chicago.
Authorities say someone opened fire from a roof as the parade passed by, killing at least six people and wounding about two dozen others.
Police said late Monday that they had arrested one suspect, Robert E. Crimo III.
Pawelczak, who had just moved from Arizona, said she went to the parade to spend time with her father, as she used to attend the event as a child.
After she passed a gang, she heard a long round of gunshots, maybe 50 or more, she said.
She believes she saw at least one person shot to death, she told CNN, her throat tight.
It was not immediately clear who she was.
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After she grabbed her father, they hid behind a dumpster for about an hour, before police herded them and others into a sporting goods store, she said.
She and her father were fine, but others in the store were injured.
“A man was shot in the head, like in the ear.
He was bleeding all over his face," Pawelczak told CNN.
"There was another girl who was escorted out, (who) was shot in the leg."
Pawelczak and his father waited in the basement until police escorted them out of the store.
Outside, the streets were "pretty dirty," Pawelczak said, and there was "blood everywhere."
"It looked like a battle zone," he said.
"Gun violence is never okay, we should never be insensitive to this."
Pawelczak later told CNN that a man had hidden his children in the dumpster.
"At one point, a man went to get his son and asked me to watch his children, so we all hid behind a dumpster and the kids, really little kids, were like 'what's going on?'" said.
"They ended up hiding in a dumpster there, the father ended up putting his kids in the dumpster to hide and stay safe. And there were probably 30 of us hiding in this little corner behind the dumpster."
Pawelczak said that his father knew Crimo.
"The boy's father is an amazing person and (I) can't believe it was his son," she said.
"I am very happy to hear that he is in custody. I can't imagine seeing what I saw today and having the person still on the streets."
One person arrested in connection with Highland Park shooting 2:56
'A bullet could go through our bodies'
Steve Tilken told CNN he took refuge in the basement of a store with his wife, two grandchildren and dozens of others as police scoured the area looking for the gunman.
The Highland Park resident told CNN he initially thought someone was setting off a series of fireworks, but his wife's 13-year-old granddaughter had received active shooting training in school and "suddenly fell to the ground sobbing." .
She also knocked her brother to the ground, Tilken said.
"My wife stood there, she stood there for like a second or two, and then she realized what was going on and then she dove to protect their bodies with her body and I stood for like a couple more seconds in disbelief because I didn't see the carnage that was happening behind me. And I threw my body on top of theirs," he said.
Tilken said they ran to the nearby store when he realized they were unprotected and in the line of fire.
"We were like ducks sitting right there and a bullet could go through all of our bodies," he said.
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About 20 people took shelter in different areas of the basement, including two women who appeared to have minor gunshot wounds, Tilken said.
"My wife's granddaughter was in shock, but in the basement, she, you know, tapped into some insider resources and was trying to help people with young children and helping keep the kids entertained and helping the two women who had some of the minor injuries," Tilken said.
He said he left the store at one point to try to see what was going on and saw a body "in a pool of blood" about eight feet from where he was standing.
"I realized...it's just your random luck that I didn't get shot."
Police with assault weapons later entered the basement looking for the attacker, Tilken said, then brought in a doctor to assess the wounded.
'Run, run, run, there's a gunman'
Warren Fried, who attended the parade with his wife and 7-year-old twins, said he saw police and an ambulance pass by in the parade and then heard a battery of gunshots.
People began shouting "shoot" and "run," and he and his family fled to their car for safety.
"People were hiding, children were in the streets looking for their parents, in shock," he said.
Another attendee, Miles Zaremski, who has lived in the area for about 37 years, first thought the shots were firecrackers from a parade vehicle, or fireworks.
As he continued, he realized the sound was coming from a gun and saw people running away.
“I saw blood on the sidewalk.
I saw a bloody body that looked dead," Zaremski told CNN.
"It was disgusting. It was just chaotic."
Zaremski later said that witnessing the scene "on the nation's birthday ... with people supposedly enjoying themselves," had shaken him to the core.
"If it can happen on the 4th of July in a law-abiding, peaceful community like we have in Highland Park," he told CNN.
"It can happen anywhere."
Debbie Glickman, 54, was dancing to the music, she said, when "all of a sudden we saw people running from the parade."
"One of my friends...said, 'Run, run, run, there's a gunman, there's a gunman!'" he recalled.
Glickman ran and said he didn't see a gunman or anyone injured.
"People thought maybe it was just a firecracker that had gone off badly, but people were running and... it was just absolute mass chaos," he said.
"It was absolutely the scariest thing that's ever happened to me."
This was the moment shots were heard in Highland Park 1:39
'I'm surprised it took so long'
Larry Bloom, a Highland Park resident of 15 years, told CNN that he had ridden his bike to the parade and was standing just to the right of a bandstand when he heard a "pop, pop, pop."
"Then it just started. Just a hail of gunfire, so fast, for quite a while, at least it seemed that way," Bloom said.
"Then they all got up, turned around and ran and tried to get behind something."
It was early in the celebrations and there were a lot of people present, Bloom said: "Imagine a whole audience for a parade, it was a lot of people. There were hundreds of people just in that one area, all running in the same direction," he said.
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The shots appeared to be coming from across the street and aimed at the area of the crowd he was in, Bloom said, though it was difficult to establish where the gunman was.
"He was right on top of us," he said.
"From a rooftop it wouldn't be unimaginable."
When the shooting stopped and it cleared up and police came in, most people left the area, Bloom said.
"Over the years, considering the temperature of this country and some of the demographics of our city, every year I'm surprised and grateful that it hadn't happened yet. And after getting to a safe place and being able to breathe for a few seconds, I really thought, 'Yeah, look, it's finally happened here, this is ours.' It's disappointing, but I'm surprised it took this long, which sounds horrible," Bloom said.
Jeff Leon, 57, told CNN the gunshots at the parade sounded like "firecrackers in a trash can," and it wasn't until he saw the cops react that he knew something had happened.
"It sounded like a series of firecrackers being set off inside a metal dumpster...at first that's what I thought it was," he said, adding that he didn't react immediately.
"The police started to react and I saw some people fall," León said.
It was then that he said that he and everyone around him left all their belongings and started running.
CNN's Sarah Moon, Melissa Alonso, Jason Kravarik and Dakin Andone contributed to this report.
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