Dr Shane Reti says the latest mass shooting in the United States is a "tragedy" and will cause real apprehension among residents.
At least six people are dead and many more injured after a rooftop shooter opened fire on a July 4 Independence Day parade in Illinois, Chicago on Monday (local time).
The National Party Health Spokesperson said he has first-hand experience of what locals will be feeling because he was living in Boston during the 2013 marathon bombings.
"I had been in Boston for three or four years when the marathon bombing happened and before the bombs went off the taxi driver took us over the finish line… and by the time I got to my office police were shepherding people off the streets, particularly they were shepherding us away from rubbish bins because initially, it was thought the bomb was in a rubbish bin," Reti told AM's Melissa Chan-Green on Tuesday.
He said the suburb he was living in was immediately put into lockdown and the streets were completely empty for at least 24 hours.
"We were instructed not to go outside and their [police's] thinking was if you were outside you were the perpetrator, so all the streets of my suburb completely emptied for at least 24 hours until they found the perpetrator inside a boat.
"But I've experienced what this looks like and it's just a tragedy. There will be a real apprehension because no one knows where people are, no one knows where the perpetrator is."
Reti also revealed he was tasked with travelling between Boston hospitals to find out whether any New Zealanders had been hurt during the 2013 attack.
"There will be those who need to get to medical appointments, those who will be running out of medicines. This is what we confronted in Boston and there will be some uncertainty as well as to who has been hurt. Because our task, mine and the honorary consul Simon Leeming was to go from hospital to hospital in Boston and enquire if there were any New Zealanders there who had been hurt in the bombing."
Chicago police have confirmed a rifle was recovered from the scene of Monday's shooting. Officials said the gunman, believed to be a white male between 18 to 20 years old, is still at large. It's understood he shot at the crowd from a rooftop and police are urging anyone with video footage from the parade to send it to them.
"There are no words for the kind of monster who lies in wait and fires into a crowd of families with children celebrating a holiday with their community," Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said in a statement.
It is the 358th mass shooting in the United States this year according to AM US reporter Danielle McLaughlin.
McLaughlin told AM it's "shocking" the attack happened during an Independence Day Parade.
"These small community Fourth of July parades are a cornerstone of the American summer and it sort of the kick-off of the American summer. To have this in the middle of that is shocking," she said.
The shooting comes just a day after three people were killed and several more were wounded in a mass shooting at a shopping centre in Copenhagen in Denmark on Sunday (local time).
