Cooper Roberts, 8, was wounded in the July 4 parade massacre in Highland Park, and his mother recently updated the community on his progress.
Seven people were killed and nearly 50 others were injured in the shooting, in which Cooper was shot in the spine and paralyzed below the waist.
“Today, the anniversary, I find myself feeling a lot of emotion. This will take six months. In the six months since a monstrous creature shattered our lives and forever altered their course,”Keely Roberts issued during a statement to the press.
Cooper “is learning to live with the loss of favorite activities that have been ripped away from him,” according to his mother. He is still recovering, but he is having trouble digesting and is in pain.
She penned that Cooper, an avid sports fan who recently returned to school with his twin brother, is pining for the company he once shared on the field. He still enjoys PE and recess the most, but now he spends most of his time either on the ropes or watching other students play the team sports he loves so much, she wrote.
They had to relocate to a different house to make sure Cooper could still get around, but they’ve been raising money for a while now so they can buy a permanent one.
The house, which has been abandoned by the Roberts family ever since the shooting, is “like a time capsule,” as Keely Roberts put it. She explained that in a few months the family would need to leave their current temporary residence.
Keely Roberts said she was shot in the leg and will soon be having surgery to repair the damage.
Cooper’s mother has said that her four daughters, who were not present at the parade, suffer from survivor’s guilt.
“The journey is arduous and filled with heartbreak. On the other hand, the abundance of goodness in the world continues to astound us. Truly. There have been tens of thousands of acts of kindness toward our family, and I cannot begin to describe how much we appreciate each and every one,” the authorship rests with her.
The accused shooter, Robert Crimo III, has been identified. Supposedly, Crimo fired a high-powered rifle into the crowd from a nearby rooftop.
As of December, Crimo’s father has been charged with reckless conduct for assisting his then-minor son in applying for a gun permit in 2019, despite the fact that the teen had previously threatened to kill himself and his family.
The shootings have resulted in a number of civil lawsuits, including one filed by attorneys for the Roberts family against Crimo, his father, two gun stores, and gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson.
More than $2 million has been donated to Cooper’s GoFundMe by well-wishers. In order to buy or construct a new, handicapped-accessible house, the family has begun a separate fundraising effort.
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