‘There Were a Lot of Screams’: SUV Plows Through Holiday Parade in Wisconsin, As Many As 30 People Reportedly Injured

Katherine HugginsNov 21st, 2021, 7:09 pm

A car plowed into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin on Sunday evening, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Videos posted to social media show a red SUV ramming through barriers to enter the roadway where the parade was taking place.

“There were a lot of screams and we almost thought maybe it was Santa, but it was a red SUV and it hit a lot of people,” Kaylee Staral, a business reporting intern at the Sentinel, told CNN. “After the SUV left, there were multiple people on the ground.”

According to Staral, police said at least 30 people were injured and shots were reportedly fired.

Police shouting at least 30 people down and that shots were fired.

— Kaylee Staral (@KayleeStaral) November 21, 2021

“Was it clear to you that this driver was trying to run over people?” asked CNN’s Pamela Brown.

“I couldn’t tell you for sure or not, but it was going very fast,” Staral said. “It was in the middle of the parade. It’s not like, they somehow missed it, there was a parade happening.”

Sam Kraemer, a reporter for WITI-TV FOX6 News in Milwaukee, tweeted that one witness said “most of his family are in the hospital.”

We are on scene now. One man says “most of his family are in the hospital” as he and his wife walked away. There are emergency crews everywhere @fox6now pic.twitter.com/VGltjs2R9Z

— Sam Kraemer (@SamKraemerTV) November 21, 2021

Police reportedly deemed the event a “mass casualty incident.” Homeland security expert Juliette Kayyem clarified in an interview with CNN that casualties do not necessarily mean fatalities.

“Mass can generally mean between four and five. Casualty does not necessarily mean fatality,” she said. “It means someone who needs medical assistance. So we have a range of possibilities here.”

Kayyem also added that the unconfirmed reports of shots being fired could have been the sound of a “car going through fence.”

UPDATE 7:30 PM: This post has been updated with new footage from CNN, including video of the red car breaking the barriers and Kayyem’s comments.

UPDATE 7:50 PM: Waukesha Police Chief Dan Thompson confirmed that over 20 people were injured. He said the vehicle had been recovered and police have a person of interest, but did not answer a reporter’s question whether a suspect is in custody.