CHICAGO — The first thing that hit Sarah Parise was an unfamiliar, pungent smell.

She looked down at her ginger-haired 2-year-old, Leia, who was taking a turn pushing her own stroller near a grassy field where they had stopped to play on a Saturday morning walk.

Then, it kicked in.

“All of a sudden, my eyes were just burning and I couldn’t breathe,” Parise said.

Leia began to scream: “Mommy! Mommy! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!”

Parise quickly put Leia in her stroller. She ran as fast as she could down the wide streets of her Old Irving Park neighborhood, past the towering trees with their leaves full of fall color. As she struggled with her own breathing, Leia wailed in pain and terror.

As Parise raced home, she heard whistles and cars honking, she said. She saw a blur of armed men dressed in f

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