Mom shares update 2 years after son was paralyzed in July 4 shooting

Cooper Roberts was just 8 years old when he was left paralyzed after a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois.

Now, two years later, Cooper, who just celebrated his 10th birthday, is beginning to grasp how permanently the shooting changed his life, according to his mom, Keely Roberts.

"He's a 10-year-old now, he's a big boy, and I think he is really aware of what he has lost," Roberts said Wednesday in a press conference held to mark the two-year anniversary of the shooting. "I think he's old enough now to really start to appreciate for himself the complete transformation of his life."

Cooper was left paralyzed from the waist down in the shooting, which occurred while he was attending his town's Fourth of July parade in 2022 with his twin brother Luke and his mom and dad. The suspected gunman, Robert "Bobby" Crimo III, allegedly climbed onto the roof of a nearby business and used a high-powered rifle to unleash more than 70 rounds on marchers and revelers, according to police.

The attack left seven people dead and at least 38 people injured.

During the shooting, a bullet went into Cooper's back and exited through his chest, "which did significant damage throughout his body, including to his aorta, liver, esophagus and spinal cord," Roberts said in a statement shortly after the shooting.

Crimo is scheduled for trial in February 2025. The trial date was set after Crimo rejected a plea agreement in a June 26 court hearting. The 23-year-old was expected to plead guilty to seven counts of murder and 48 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm in the agreement, which would have sentenced him to life, according to The Associated Press.

Roberts, who has four older daughters in addition to Cooper and his twin brother, said the shooting was a brutally defining moment for their family. In addition to the injuries Cooper sustained, Roberts was also shot in two parts of her leg.

"The emotional trauma this has been, I don't have words to describe what that's like," Roberts said, adding, "None of us are the same people that we were before."

Roberts noted her entire family has been in ongoing counseling since the shooting, saying they were "able to rely on mental health professionals to help support with PTSD and to help just support with what is really a moment in time where everything about you, about your life, about your loved ones changed instantly."

Two years after the shooting, Cooper continues to receive ongoing therapies for his spinal cord injury, according to Roberts. A GoFundMe started by friends of the Roberts family continues to raise money for Cooper's lifelong medical needs, including new wheelchairs and medical equipment as he grows and renovations to the family's home to make it ADA-compliant.

One of the most difficult aspects of the recovery for Cooper has been that he will never again be able to play his beloved sport of soccer in the same way he did pre-shooting, according to Roberts.

"As a mom, one of the hardest things about this entire experience is seeing things my kids love taken from them, and Cooper loved soccer. That sport was part of who he was," she said. "It has been so negatively impactful on him to lose the ability to play it. Soccer teams are big teams and Cooper just loves being a teammate … it took that from him."

In the absence of soccer, Roberts said Cooper has begun to try playing adaptive sports, including wheelchair basketball and his new favorite sport, sled hockey.

"Sled hockey also has very big teams and it has allowed him to be a part of a team again, to cheer for his friends, cheer for his team," Roberts said. "The joy is just so evident when you see him play sled hockey."

Cooper and his family plan to spend this year's Fourth of July holiday on a lake in Wisconsin, according to Roberts, who said the family will celebrate being together while not forgetting the lives lost in the shooting.

"We'll just really lean into how much we have to be thankful for that my family is still intact, they're together," she said. "There are families that lost loved ones in this shooting and our hearts break with them. We will grieve every step of the way alongside with those families, but for these few days, we're going to go and just be."

Roberts said she and her family have found comfort over the past two years in the good they have seen from friends, family and strangers that she says has outweighed what her family experienced on July 4, 2022.

"It is 110% true that for as damaging and hurtful that this dark evil did to our lives, it is balanced, even overweighed, by the goodness and the light and the love," Roberts said.

She added, "We've been constantly, constantly reminded ourselves, and, in turn, we are talking every day with the boys about how this was one horrific, terrible act by by darkness, but every single day, every single day, we are just blessed by the love and generosity of neighbors, of strangers, of people within our community, people outside our country, worldwide."