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Spanish police have seized three 'drone submarines' capable of carrying large amounts of drugs and broken up an alleged smuggling gang.

Officers confiscated three partly build unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and arrested eight people in Spain.

Police said it was the first time they had seized such devices, capable of transporting drugs, such as cocaine, from Morocco to Spain.

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"The three – two of which were being built and one which was practically completed – were to be delivered to French drug traffickers for transporting large quantities of cocaine," a police statement released on Monday (Tuesday AEST) said.

"These devices could allow drug traffickers to transport large quantities of narcotics remotely across the Strait of Gibraltar."

Each UUV could carry up to 200kg of product.

Police said the gang also build aerial drones, with police seizing several large unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Each could fly up to 30km, enabling them to cross the 15km strait separating Morocco and Spain.

READ MORE: Rooftop gunman kills six people at US parade

The gang also built false bottoms into vehicles to carry drugs.

Police said their customers included criminal networks in Denmark, France, Italy and Spain.

A 22-year-old man identified as a person of interest in a mass shooting that killed at least six people, wounded at least 30 and sent hundreds of people fleeing from an Independence Day parade in suburban Chicago has been taken into custody.

Police earlier said Robert E. Crimo III should be considered armed and dangerous and was pulled over by police on Monday evening after a brief pursuit.

Earlier, Highland Park Police Chief Lou Jogmen said that police had identified Crimo as a person of interest.

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Police declined to answer questions about how they identified Crimo.

Authorities described his car as a silver Honda Fit with an Illinois licence plate DM 80653.

Highland Park Police Commander Chris O'Neill, the incident commander on scene, urged people to shelter in place as authorities searched for the suspect. 

The July 4 shooting was just the latest to shatter the rituals of American life. 

Schools, churches, grocery stores and now community parades have all become killing grounds in recent months. 

https://twitter.com/sophie_walsh9/status/1544105613549920256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

This time, the bloodshed came as the nation tried to find cause to celebrate its founding and the bonds that still hold it together.

Mayor Nancy Rotering said the violence "has shaken us to our core," adding, "On a day that we came together to celebrate community and freedom, we are instead mourning the tragic loss of life and struggling with the terror that was brought upon us."

The shooting occurred at a spot on the parade route where many residents had staked out prime viewing points early in the day for the annual celebration. 

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Dozens of fired bullets sent hundreds of parade-goers — some visibly bloodied — fleeing. 

They left a trail of abandoned items that showed everyday life suddenly, violently disrupted: a half-eaten bag of potato chips; a box of chocolate cookies spilled onto the grass; a child's Chicago Cubs cap.

"There's no safe place," said Highland Park resident Barbara Harte, 73, who had stayed away from the parade fearing a mass shooting, but later ventured from her home.

Lake County Major Crime Task Force spokesman Christopher Covelli said at a news conference "several of the deceased victims" died at the scene and one was taken to a hospital and died there. 

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Police have not released details about the victims or wounded.

Lake County Coroner Jennifer Banek said the five people killed at the parade were adults and she doesn't have information on the sixth victim who was taken to a hospital and died there.

Roberto Velasco, Mexico's director for North American affairs, said on Twitter Monday that one Mexican national was killed in Highland Park and added that two other Mexicans were wounded.

Dr Brigham Temple, medical director of emergency preparedness for NorthShore University Health Centre, said the Highland Park hospital received 26 patients after the attack and all but one had gunshot wounds. 

Their ages ranged from eight to 85, and Temple estimated that four or five patients were children.

He said 19 of them were treated and discharged.

Others were transferred to other hospitals, while two patients, in stable condition, remained at the Highland Park hospital.

The shooter opened fire around 10.15am., when the parade was about three-quarters through, authorities said.

Covelli said the gunman apparently used a "high-powered rifle" to fire from a spot atop a commercial building where he was "very difficult to see".

He said the rifle was recovered at the scene.

Police also found a ladder attached to the building.

"Very random, very intentional and a very sad day," Covelli said.

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President Joe Biden on Monday said he and first lady Jill Biden were "shocked by the senseless gun violence that has yet again brought grief to an American community on this Independence Day".

He said he had "surged Federal law enforcement to assist in the urgent search for the shooter, who remains at large at this time."

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were conducting an urgent trace of the rifle, agency spokesperson April Langwell said.

Federal agents conduct such traces to identify when, where and to whom the gun was last sold.

Biden signed the widest-ranging gun violence bill passed by Congress in decades, a compromise that showed at once both progress on a long-intractable issue and the deep-seated partisan divide that persists.

Several nearby cities cancelled events including parades and fireworks, some of them noting that the Highland Park shooter was still at large. Evanston, Deerfield, Skokie, Waukegan and Glencoe cancelled events.

The Chicago White Sox also announced on Twitter that a planned post-game fireworks show is cancelled due to the shooting.

"You have a tragic mass act of violence that was random here today at a community event where people were gathered to celebrate, and the offender has not been apprehended thus far," Covelli, the crime task force spokesman, said.

"So, could this happen again? We don't know what his intentions are at this point, so certainly we're not sure of that."

More than 100 law enforcement officers were called to the parade scene or dispatched to find the suspected shooter.

Hours after the shooting, law enforcement officers searched an office building near where the shooting occurred.

Nearby, armed FBI agents in camouflage had also escorted a family with two small girls across Central Avenue.

The children looked visibly frightened even as their mother attempted to reassure them that the agents leading and flanking them would protect them.

"Don't worry, you're safe now," she told them.

"These guys will protect you."

Ominous signs of a joyous event suddenly turned to horror filled both sides of Central Avenue where the shooting occurred.

Dozens of baby strollers — some bearing American flags, abandoned children's bikes and a helmet bedecked with images of Cinderella were left behind.

Blankets, lawn chairs, coffees and water bottles were knocked over as people fled.

Highland Park is a close-knit community of about 30,000 people located on the shores of Lake Michigan just north of Chicago, with mansions and sprawling lakeside estates that have long drawn the rich and sometimes famous, including NBA legend Michael Jordan, who lived in the city for years when he played for the Chicago Bulls.

John Hughes filmed parts of several movies in the city, including Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sixteen Candles and Weird Science.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said in a statement: "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."

Gina Troiani and her son were lined up with his daycare class ready to walk onto the parade route when she heard a loud sound that she believed was fireworks — until she heard people yell about a shooter. In a video that Troiani shot on her phone, some of the kids are visibly startled at the loud noise, and they scramble to the side of the road as a siren wails nearby.

"We just start running in the opposite direction," she told The Associated Press.

Her five-year-old son was riding his bike decorated with red and blue curled ribbons. He and other children in the group held small American flags.

The city said on its website that the festivities were to include a children's bike and pet parade.

Troiani said she pushed her son's bike, running through the neighbourhood to get back to their car.

"It was just sort of chaos," she said.

"There were people that got separated from their families, looking for them. Others just dropped their wagons, grabbed their kids and started running."

Debbie Glickman, a Highland Park resident, said she was on a parade float with co-workers and the group was preparing to turn onto the main route when she saw people running from the area.

"People started saying: 'There's a shooter, there's a shooter, there's a shooter,'" Glickman told the AP.

"So we just ran. We just ran. It's like mass chaos down there."

She didn't hear any noises or see anyone who appeared to be injured.

"I'm so freaked out," she said.

"It's just so sad."

Dr Ben Bravery was just 28 when he was diagnosed with bowel cancer.

He'd had diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain and bleeding, on and off for six months – but only saw his GP as his mother Jo begged him to.

After his diagnosis, he underwent gruelling treatment to remove the tumour, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery.

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And while he admits there was nothing wrong with his actual health care, he was stuck by the way he was treated as a hospital patient.

Especially when, after his surgery, his expected few days stay became four weeks due to serious complications.

"I got world class medicine but the humanity part was often missing," he told nine.com.au.

"It was really disempowering.

"Not only was I sick and in a lot of pain, I was often confused and not really clear when the doctors were coming, what was happening with my treatment, when I was getting out.

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"And when a doctor did come they'd often have a whole team with them that I didn't know, and ask me really intimate questions really quickly.

"Even if you had questions, you don't feel brave enough to ask them."

He was also in a shared ward in the Melbourne hospital, where he was decades younger than other patients.

"I spent a lot of time next to one man who on a nightly basis would beg the doctors to die. I started getting anxiety that I was going to end up like that," he said.

"Nobody checked in with me of this stuff. They were focused on the technical stuff."

At one point he said a hospital manager even threatened to give him a feeding tube if he didn't start eating, when he simply couldn't.

Once Bravery recovered, after 18 months of treatment, he returned to his job.

After training as a zoologist, he was running a science communications business.

But he wasn't happy, and despite changing jobs again, had a feeling he knew what he wanted to do.

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He Google-searched 'how to become a doctor'.

And aged 32, he went to medical school in Sydney, with the aim of becoming an oncologist.

He wasn't from a typical medical school background, being the first in his family to go to university, and the second to finish high school.

He was born to a young mother and his father wasn't around, and at times Bravery lived in a caravan in south-east Queensland's Logan area.

He explained why he was so drawn to medicine as a profession.

"A lot of people would run from it and never wanna go back," he said.

"I wanted to go back for two reasons. I wanted to give back. I was so grateful for having my life saved. I got world class medicine – and I didn't pay a cent.

"And the second reason was, these things I noticed, sometimes how people spoke to me, sometimes when I didn't feel strong enough to ask questions, or didn't understand, I thought maybe I could go back and make it a bit better for other patients and doctors.

"It's a bare bones keep people alive system, and that's good it does that.

"But what people remember is the grumpy nurse, the doctor who didn't listen to them."

He found medical school tough.

He encountered bullying, a surprising absence of specific training on cancer and a lack of encouragement on treating patients with compassion.

And after graduating in 2018 his first job as an intern was in a hospital in Western Sydney.

But it wasn't what he'd hoped for either.

There were 12-hour days, a high workload, a lack of respect from senior doctors and he felt like patients were treated as numbers rather than people.

He said he saw an elderly man die without his wife there even though she was in the same hospital – because she was bedridden and there were no porters to take her to his side.

He also witnessed a man with terminal cancer, who had broken his arm, wait a week for surgery as he wasn't classed as a priority.

"It was disappointing. The way doctors approached patients, and the way doctors approached doctors, seemed to have a lot of problems," he said.

"I went to medical school to try and make things better for patients and discovered I wasn't going to do that unless I also made things better for doctors.

"I had tried to hold on to who I was, the kindness, the compassion, but it's really hard to implement in practice because you're slammed."

However, he stuck with it, and has now found a specialty where he hopes to make a difference – psychiatry.

Bravery is working in a Sydney hospital and says he has no regrets about his dramatic life change.

Now aged 40, he also has a son, Evren, with wife Sana, who he'd only just met when he was diagnosed.

He was born after IVF – Bravery had frozen his sperm as his cancer treatment had left him infertile.

He also has no evidence of cancer, but still goes for checks.

Bravery said he's still determined to make a difference for other patients, even if, as a junior doctor, he's starting small.

"I'm able to do my little bit, every patient interaction I'm trying to remember I'm having a conversation that might change that person's life," he said.

"But I bring this really interesting mix, having being sick, and going to med school.

"I still see myself as a patient wearing a stethoscope."

Bravery has written a book called The Patient Doctor about his experience, which is out now. Find more details about bowel cancer here.