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

Police have released a photograph of the weapon used in the Highland Park mass shooting on 4 July, where seven people were killed and dozens injured.

A spokesperson for the Lake County Major Crime Task Force said suspect Robert Crimo, 21, used a rifle “similar to an AR-15” from atop a commercial building and fired into a crowd that had gathered for the parade in Highland Park.

On Wednesday night, the police released a photograph of the Smith & Wesson M&P 15 rifle, which reportedly fell out of the alleged gunman’s bag and into an alley when he was scaling down the fire escape ladder he had climbed to get to the building’s rooftop to stage the mass shooting on Monday.

Read the full story from Sravasti Dasgupta below:

The family of a friend of alleged shooter Robert Crimo told The Daily Beast that they were left stunned after learning that the 21-year-old, the same one who spoke at their son’s funeral in 2017, had been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder following the Independence Day mass shooting.

Michele Rebollar, whose son Anthony LaPorte died in 2017, told The Daily Beast how surprised she was to learn that the then-awkward teen, who now stands accused of carrying out a deadly massacre in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, was the same person who got up to commemorate her child during a funeral not so many years ago.

“My name is Bobby, and Anthony was the person I would call when I couldn’t sleep and he would always reply,” Mr Crimo said in a video of the funeral service reviewed by the news outlet. “And he was always free to hang out and whenever I was with him. It felt like I wasn’t alone anymore, like I had somebody there, like, that was actually there.”

“There were so many nights we would just keep walking ‘cause both of us could never sleep and our conversations would be so deep. I really did love Anthony. He was a really good friend,” Mr Crimo said.

Ms Rebollar told The Daily Beast that she initially didn’t want to talk about the accused shooter and his relationship with her son, but later changed her mind as she didn’t want her son’s memory to become tainted by association.

“It broke my heart that my son, who was the most gentle spirit in the world, who would have carried a bug out of the house rather than kill it … that somehow he would be connected in some way, shape, or form [to Crimo] just is horrific.”

Read the full interview on The Daily Beast.

is uncle said he “saw no signs of trouble”.

The mayor said she remembers him as “just a little boy” when she knew him as a Cub Scout.

Local police said that he wasn’t even on their radar.

But a close look at Robert Crimo’s online presence tells a very different story.

Across multiple platforms, the 21-year-old often posted disturbing and violent videos including one of a beheading.

Here, The Independent’s Rachel Sharp takes a deep dive into a trail of disturbing online posts including videos glorifying school shootings and mass violence, all of which have raised questions about whether red flags were missed.

In one of his first public interviews since his son was arrested and charged with seven counts of first-degree murder in connection to the Highland Park shooting that took place on Monday, Robert Crimo Jr, the suspect’s father, told ABC News that he was “shocked” to learn what his child was accused of.

“I had no -- not an inkling, warning -- that this was going to happen,” Mr Crimo told ABC News about the parade attack. “I am just shocked,” he said, claiming that he and his wife both asked their son whether he had any plans for the holiday Monday, to which he responded “no” and that he appeared to be in a “great mood”.

The couple reportedly spent nearly an hour in their yard together on the Sunday before the attack, Mr Crimo told the news outlet.

The father of the alleged Highland Park parade shooter, Robert Crimo Jr, told ABC News in one of the man’s first public interviews that he doesn’t regret sponsoring his son’s FOID card back in 2019, which later enabled the accused gunman to purchase firearms the following year.

“I filled out the consent form to allow my son to go through the process that the Illinois State Police have in place for an individual to obtain a FOID card,” Mr Crimo explained in an interview with the news outlet. “They do background checks. Whatever that entails, I’m not exactly sure. And either you’re approved or denied, and he was approved.”

It was revealed this week that the suspected gunman’s father sponsored his son’s Firearm Owners Identification card, which is required in the state of Illinois to legally possess firearms or ammunition, in December 2019, just two months after police had been called to the family home after the then-19-year-old had made threats to “kill everyone” inside.

Illinois State Police have announced that there will a criminal investigation opened up to probe the father’s culpability because he sponsored his son’s application for a firearm owner identification card in 2019.

“Do I regret that? No, not three years ago -- signing a consent form to go through the process … that’s all it was,” said Mr Crimo, noting that he wasn’t concerned about potential legal consequences. The parents of the accused shooter have retained high-profile attorney Steve Greenberg, whose previous clients have included figures like R Kelly.

“Had I purchased guns throughout the years and given them to him in my name, that’s a different story. But he went through that whole process himself.”

Mr Crimo noted during the interview that his son had both purchased and registered the weapons on his own with his own funds.

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.

Officers revealed this week that, despite earlier saying that they’d had no knowledge of accused Highland Park shooter Robert Crimo before Monday’s attack, they’d made contact with him in two separate instances in 2019.

In the first incident, police responded to a call that the then-19-year-old was threatening to kill himself. The second time police made contact with Mr Crimo was in September 2019, just two months before his father sponsored his FOID card.

Officers were called to the home because he had threatened to “kill everyone”. They later determined that he was a “clear and present danger” and would go on to confiscate 16 knives, a dagger and a Samurai-style sword from the home, according to a redacted report released by the Illinois State Police.

When asked by ABC about those specific instances, or whether there were other occasions when the family potentially viewed the accused gunman as a threat, Mr Crimo claimed that those run-ins with law enforcement had been “taken out of context” and his son had been exhibiting something more akin to teen angst rather than a physical danger.

“Making threats to the family … I think [that was] taken out of context,” Mr Crimo told the news agency describing the 2019 incident. “It’s like just a child’s outburst, whatever he was upset about, and I think his sister called the police -- I wasn’t living there.”

At the time, police didn’t open a criminal investigation into the incident.

Read the full report from The Independent below:

One of Highland Park shooter Robert Crimo’s family members was left too “afraid to go home” after the suspected mass murderer threatened to “kill everyone” back in 2019, according to a bombshell police report.

In the redacted case report from the 5 September 2019 incident, officers revealed how then-18-year-old Mr Crimo admitted he was depressed and had a history of drug use when he allegedly made threats to kill his family.

Police confiscated a trove of knives from his bedroom at the time including a 24-inch Samurai type sword, a 12-inch dagger and a tin lunch box with 16 hand knives – which were then collected just four hours later by Mr Crimo’s father Bob Crimo.

But, despite the warning signs about Mr Crimo’s disturbing behaviour, he was approved for a state firearm permit just four months after the threats to kill his family.

Keep reading the full report from my colleague Rachel Sharp:

Days after a rooftop gunman killed seven people at a parade, attention has turned to how the assailant obtained multiple guns and whether the laws on Illinois books could have prevented the Independence Day massacre.

The gun laws in the midwest state are often viewed as being some of the tougher ones that exist when compared to states across the country. However, even with those laws in place, they didn’t manage to prevent Robert E Crimo III from carrying out a deadly attack in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park.

One focus is on the state’s so-called red-flag law, which is intended to temporarily take away guns from people with potentially violent behavior. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have such laws.

Here, you can read more about Illinois’ red-flag and gun-licensing laws, and see whether they could have been applied to Mr Crimo:

Speaking to ABC News in one of his first public interviews, Robert Crimo Jr said that he and his wife are hoping to use their platform to raise awareness about the gaps in the current gun laws on the books and the urgent need for reform.

“We need to come together as a community here in the country to come up with something, whether it’s new laws, guidelines,” he told the news outlet on Thursday. “This country is our problem right here.”