Highland Park Shooting Hoax - Crisis Actor & Major Embellisher Michael Schwartz

Video Transcript:

We're going to go straight to Michael Schwartz, who is joining us right now. He's a witness who is there, Michael. What exactly happened? Can you explain it for us? Well, first of all, my wife is confined to a wheelchair and I was there along with my two week old grandson who was in a buggy. So we did not have the option of fleeing. We had to stay there, kind of laying on the ground. I had my wife as close to the ground as I could get her in the wheelchair and the baby buggy we had the both position behind something. It was somewhat of a protection, but because of this and partially because I couldn't believe that this was not fireworks, I stood up to see what was going on and I really got to, I know this is going to go against the grain of what people are saying, but I saw the shooter, I saw his gun in between the rounds. I stood up because he was reloading and I thought it was safe and I saw him. He was a young kid skinny and he was in a military shooting position very close to the ground. The kind of position only a young skinny kid could get into and when he began shooting again, I hit the ground again, but I had a good look at this guy. He was not on a rooftop, he was on the street. He was right behind the street post that had a stop sign on it and he was shooting from behind that. This information about being on a rooftop just because there was an access to the rooftop doesn't mean he was there. I mean, I saw this kid and by the way, I saw when he got up and ran when the gunfire stopped, I looked and he got up and ran and I saw him run north on second street and at that point I knew we were safe and I was able to get my wife and our grandchild out of there safely. But in doing so, we had to go around a dead woman who was shot and a head of her were probably six or seven people who were down on the ground. My first concern was to get them safely. What were your immediate thoughts when you saw that shooter, when you say you made eye contact with him? I couldn't believe that this was happening. It was too bizarre. And of course, you're... I was sure the noise was fireworks because I had never heard, of course I had never heard no automatic weapon, but it was pop pop pop pop pop and I thought that's got to be fireworks. No gun could fire that fast, but obviously it was. Now there were only two sets of rounds fired. The first was about 30 and the second was about 30 and that's when he stopped and turned around and ran. And by the way, it took the cops. Oh, it seemed like five long minutes. Maybe it was less than that. And one guy showed up and I stayed there because I knew we were safe. I stayed there because I wanted them to know where he went and I yelled at this guy and I pointed to the direction he went and the guy looked around like in the sky and all around and I said, go, go after him. And you know, eventually he started walking, sondering down the street. Michael, your wife was in a wheelchair. Your child's in a wagon. How long did it take you to get them to safety? The baby buggy. The baby buggy. I'm sorry. What was your question? How long did it take you to get them to safety? What were you doing in those moments, getting them to safety? I saw that he had run down the street and I knew that we were safe. There was one guy. There was one guy firing, he was firing from where I could see him and when he was gone and go in the opposite direction to where we would go, we didn't take our time. I wanted to fast as I could but you know, go too fast, push in the wheelchair. Just to kind of explain the parade and part of what this day means, of course, how far into the parade was it when this shooting broke out? It was almost immediately after the parade started. What happened was the band went by, the band was I think second or third. The parade started at 10. The band went by maybe seven minutes into the parade and at that point, my guess is the shooter didn't want to shoot a bunch of kids in the band. By the way, they say these were random shootings. This kid that was doing the shooting had a scope on his rifle. I saw the scope and I saw his eye in the scope. I mean, I didn't see the eye but I saw him looking through the scope. He was deliberately shooting. I think he was deliberately trying to get a delts so that children weren't hurt but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, let me back up. You asked when it happened in the parade. Well, as soon as the band left, there was a gap in the parade and in that gap is when he started firing because at that point, he could fire across the street to where we were standing to where there was a large crowd. All right, Michael Swarche. Thank you so much for sharing your story. We appreciate it.