Highland Park shooting: Robert Crimo’s parents say they had ‘zero’ role in July 4 parade attack

The 21-year-old alleged murderer appeared in court on Wednesday for the first time via Zoom where he was ordered to be held without bond on seven counts of first-degree murder.

During the morning bond hearing, the accused gunman appeared in the 19th Circuit Court in Lake County, Illinois, dressed in a black t-shirt and his long dark hair down around his face as he stared into the camera.

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell shared the gripping moment from her interview with Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering where the elected official of the latest US city to suffer a mass shooting described the story that will “haunt” her for the rest of her life is that of Aiden McCarthy, the 2-year-old who lost both his parents in the attack on the holiday Monday.

“The story that...will haunt me for the rest of my life was of Aiden McCarthy…He had blood on his feet. He had been found under his father who was on top of him to protect him from the gun,” tweeted Ms Mitchell, who was relaying what Ms Rotering had said to her.

“He was being passed around in an underground garage because...nobody could figure out whose child that was. And when I realized that nobody was panicking and looking for a baby, there could only be one conclusion, I almost threw up.”

The gun used in the Highland Park July 4th parade mass shooting that killed seven and wounded dozens was a Smith & Wesson M&P 15 rifle, authorities have revealed.

Prosecutors say Robert “Bobby” Crimo III fired more than 80 rounds from a rooftop onto an Independence Day crowd, reloading three times, before escaping down a fire escape while disguised as a woman and melting into the crowd.

After fleeing the rooftop, authorities said the weapon fell out of his bag in an alley.

They found the rifle, three 30-round high-capacity magazines and 83 spent shell casings around the scene.

Read the full explainer from my colleague Bevan Hurley below:

The high-powered rifle used to kill seven and wound dozens more in the Independence Day parade mass shooting was legally purchased at an online retailer in Kentucky.

The Daily Beast reported the suspect bought the Smith & Wesson M&P 15 semi-automatic rifle at Buds Gun Shops, who sell the weapon for under $700 with free shipping.

The weapon was shipped to an Illinois gun dealer called Red Dot Arms, where suspect Robert Crimo III picked it up from.

The owner of Red Dot Arms told the news outlet that he was contacted by federal agents on Monday after they located the weapon near the scene of the mass shooting.

He was able to pass on Mr Crimo’s details after driving to his office and checking sales information.

“Somebody that... would’ve put a thought [into] this would’ve grinded the serial number and we would’ve never found him,” the owner said.

Police told reporters on Wednesday that Robert Crimo, who has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder in relation to the Highland Park shooting and will face life in prison without the possibility of parole if he is convicted, had planned a second attack in Wisconsin after the July 4th attack in Illinois.

In a press conference outside the court, Lake County Sheriff’s Office Sgt Christopher Covelli said that Mr Crimo crossed state lines from Illinois to Wisconsin, driving all the way to Madison in his mother’s vehicle.

Though he’d driven in his car some distance, at some point he changed his mind for some unknown reason, and the 21-year-old drove back to Illinois where he was later arrested by officers in North Chicago.

“Investigators did develop some information that it appears when he drove to Madison, he was driving around, however, he did see a celebration that was occurring in Madison, and he seriously contemplated using the firearm he had in his vehicle to commit another shooting in Madison,” he said.

Read the full report from Rachel Sharp:

An ex-HuffPost editor has come under fire after sending a tweet that told a survivor from the 4th July Highland Park shooting to “go vote” after the victim shared a bloodied picture of her wounds online.

“I cant f***ing believe I was in the middle of a mass shooting,” wrote a woman, known only as Lilli, on Twitter on Monday following the brazen Independence Day shooting in Illinois’s Highland Park that left seven dead and dozens more sustaining injuries. “I’ve felt safe at this parade for 18 years and today I got hit with a bullet and nothing will change in America, this is ridiculous,” she added, garnering thousands of likes, comments and retweets.

One of the commenters on the since viral tweet was former HuffPost writer and editor Ann Brenoff, who after first offering her condolences to the young woman pitched that surviving such an experience should inspire her to get out and “register to vote”.

Commenters online were swift to call out Ms Brenoff for offering up platitudes to a woman who had only hours before had a bullet from the AR-15 style rifle used by the suspected shooter graze her cheek.

Read the full report from The Independent below:

A GoFundme set up for a two-year-old whose mother and father were killed in the Independence Day mass shooting has raised more than $2.5m.

Aiden McCarthy’s parents Irina and Kevin were among the seven killed when a gunman opened fire in Highland Park on Monday.

The fundraiser reached the $2.5m mark on Wednesday afternoon, with more than 46,000 individual donors.

Among them was billionaire hedgefund manager Bill Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square Capitol, who donated $18,000 to the fund.

Kevin McCarthy shielded his son Aiden from the gunman’s fire.

Martin Blumenthal, the volunteer security coordinator for Central Avenue Synagogue, told The Forward that the Highland Park suspect visited the congregation on the last day of Passover in April.

The facility is located just a stone’s throw away from the parade route where the 21-year-old is alleged to have randomly fired off more than 70 rounds into a crowd watching the Independence Day celebration on Monday.

“He was definitely sizing up the synagogue,” Mr Blumenthal said in an interview on Tuesday, adding that he was first alerted to the young man’s presence in the synagogue as he claimed he didn’t match the typical Chabad visitor, as he was dressed in all black, including black gloves.

Read Johanna Chisholm’s report here.

Highland Park – in a case that reached the US Supreme Court – has outlawed the kinds of weapons used in the massacre, in a state with restrictive gun laws, none of which stopped violence on Independence Day.

A fragile patchwork of federal, state and local laws to combat the proliferation of guns – which vastly outnumber Americans – may have helped curb the severity of some mass shootings, but gun violence prevails with frightening regularity as long as they are available.

Read Alex Woodward’s report.

Katherine Goldstein, 64, ran for cover with her daughter Cassie after a gunman opened fire at the Highland Park Independence Day parade.

“My daughter, Cassie, looked up at the rooftop and saw the man with the gun. She said ‘Mom, we have to run,’ and they ran,” Craig Goldstein told CNN.

“They were running side by side when a bullet entered Katie’s chest.”

Mr Goldstein said his daughter was able to say “I love you” to her dying mother before being grabbed by a stranger and told to keep running.

Mr Goldstein said his wife was a devoted mother of two who used to love going bird watching every morning in the spring.

Read more about the seven victims of Monday’s mass shooting here.