Highland Park shooter Bobby Crimo appeared in court on Wednesday morning to be charged with multiple counts of murder as prosecutors shared more details of his deadly rampage.
Crimo, 21, spoke softly to tell the court that he did not have a lawyer, and to ask for a public defender. He was dressed in all-black, wore his long dark hair draped over one eye and shifted on his feet as he appeared via Zoom from a room in the Lake County Jail.
He was denied bond by Judge Theodore S. Potkonjak, and will remain in custody until his next court date on July 25th.
Tom Durkin, the attorney who had been hired to represent him, pulled out due to an unknown, last-minute conflict of interest. Now, Crimo will be represented by a public defender.
During the court appearance, it was revealed;
- Crimo used a legally purchased Smith & Wesson M&P 15 to carry out the attack
- He bought the weapon – which costs around $800 – in 2020
- Crimo fired 83 rounds in total, reloading his weapon twice before fleeing the roof of the building along the parade route
- Police tracked him down by tracing the serial number of the gun to his home; he dropped the weapon while running away from the parade
- Once in custody, he made a full confession and told cops he ‘looked down, aimed and fired’ into the crowd
- He said he dressed up ‘like a girl’ and used make-up to cover his face and neck tattoos
It has also been revealed that Crimo drove to Madison, Wisconsin, in his mother’s car after the shooting where he happened upon another July 4th celebration.
Police do not yet know exactly what his motive for the killing spree was but on Wednesday they confirmed his fixation on the numbers 47 – the inverse of 7/4, the date of July 4th.
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Crimo is shown appearing in court via Zoom later on Wednesday morning. He spoke only to say that he didn’t have a lawyer and asked if the court would appoint a public defender
He was dressed in all-black, wore his long dark hair draped over one eye and shifted on his feet as he appeared via Zoom from a room in the Lake County Jail.
He contemplated a second shooting there because he had 60 rounds left, but decided against it and drove back to Illinois where he was later arrested.
Lake County Major Crime Task Force spokesperson Chris Covelli said on Wednesday that Crimo didn’t go through with it because he didn’t plan it out as thoroughly as he had with Highland Park.
Earlier, his mugshots were made public which show him standing expressionless wearing a black t-shirt with his dark hair draped over one of his eyes. His cheek and neck tattoos are on full display.
Crimo used a legally purchased Smith & Wesson M&P 15 to carry out the attack. He bought the weapon – which costs around $800 – in 2020
Meanwhile, his parents’ attorney has spoken out in their defense to insist there were ‘no red flags’ for them to report to police.
Crimo’s father supported his application for a FOID card – the license needed to buy guns – in 2019 when he was 19 and just two months after an incident when police were called to the family home.
Police confiscated 16 knives after that incident because Crimo had ‘threatened to kill everyone’.
He was not arrested and his family say cops gave the knives back two weeks later.
Crimo’s mother and father have not been charged but they have retained a lawyer in Steve Greenberg, a local man who railed against the shooting on Twitter on Monday before realizing that his friends’ son was responsible for it. Crimo is being represented by two other attorneys from a different firm.
On Tuesday night, he appeared on NewsNation to insist his clients Bob Crimo and Denise Pesina have done nothing wrong, and to deny claims by police that they were called to the family house twice in 2019.
‘I don’t think anyone’s ever aware of any red flags that make them think that their son is gonna go out in their own community and start shooting people.
‘Had they seen any signs of it, I think they would have acted. They’re responsible parents,’ Greenberg said.
On Tuesday, police told how Crimo’s father sponsored him for a FOID card – the license needed to buy a gun – in 2019 when he was 19. It was two months after an incident at the home where cops said they confiscated 16 knives, a dagger and a sword after Bobby threatened to ‘kill everyone’ in his family.
Amid intense scrutiny of that decision to help his son buy a gun, the father’s attorney said on Tuesday that police ‘couldn’t have been too concerned’ because they returned the knives to Bobby two weeks later.
Crimo, 21, is expressionless in mugshots that emerged on Wednesday morning. He is wearing a black t-shirt with his dark hair draped over one of his eyes. His cheek and neck tattoos are on full display.
Bob Crimo Jr. and his wife, Denise, said in a brief statement: ‘We are all mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and this is a terrible tragedy for many families, the victims, the paradegoers, the community, and our own. Our hearts, thoughts, and prayers go out to everybody’
The shooter was on the roof of Ross Cosmetics, left, and fired into the parade after gaining access from a fire escape stairway in a nearby alley
An aerial view of the parade route. The gunman told police he ‘aimed and fired’ his weapon into the crowd
‘The police returned those knives to them two weeks after they took the knives. The police couldn’t have been too alarmed. There was a dispute and the situation was resolved.
‘The bigger issue is why does a 20 year old or 21 year old, why is he able to get a FOID card and purchase a military style weapon. That’s the question we need to be asking not how did he get a FOID card when there were no red flags and it was perfectly lawful.’
He also disputed the account of the incident that the authorities made public yesterday. ‘
They’ve disputed that he was ever suicidal and that they ever claimed he was suicidal, and that he ever threatened to kill everyone.
If he had, the police would have taken some action, placed him on a psychiatric watch. I’m not sure that’s really what happened,’ he said.
Greenberg said the massacre was a tragedy ‘all the way around’, including for the shooter’s parents.
‘Imagine waking up one day and knowing your loved one goes to a parade gets killed imagine knowing your child may never get out of jail. It’s just a horrific tragedy all the way around for everybody involved.’
He added that since the shooting, Crimo and his parents had spoken and that all were cooperating with police.
‘They expressed to him that they love him and he expressed that he loved them,’ he said.
Death toll in Highland Park July Fourth shooting rises to seven
The number of people who have died in the Highland Park Fourth of July massacre has risen to seven, as of Wednesday morning.
The victims include Stephen Straus, 88; Katherine Goldstein, 64; Jacki Sundheim, 63; Nicholas Toledo Zaragoza, 78; Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, and husband and wife Irina and Kevin McCarthy, 35 and 37.
On Wednesday, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office revealed that the seventh victim, Uvaldo, died at Evanston Hospital around 8am. The number of injured now stands at 46, and they range in age from 8 to 85 years old.
Robert Crimo, 21, appeared in Lake County court on Wednesday morning after being charged with seven counts of first-degree murder. He is expected to face a slew of other charges, and is being held without bail.
Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart told the court that Crimo carried out a ‘calculated and premeditated attack’. He said Crimo confessed to standing on a roof above the parade route, and took aim at people standing across the street, reloading his Smith & Wesson AR-15 rifle three times.
Police recovered 83 spent casings from the roof.
Irina and Kevin McCarthy, 35 and 37, were both killed in the massacre. Their two-year-old son, Aiden, was pulled from underneath his father’s body
Nicolas Toledo, 76, had not wanted to attend the July 4 parade in Highland Park, Ill., on Monday, his granddaughter because he was in a wheelchair
Irina and Kevin McCarthy, 35 and 37, were the parents of a two-year-old boy, Aiden, who is now orphaned. He was pulled from underneath his father’s body and taken care of by paradegoers.
Nicolas Toledo, 76 was the first victim to be identified. He was a grandfather visiting his family from Mexico. His family said he was shot in the head as he sat in his wheelchair, his blood splattering on them.
Toledo had not wanted to attend the parade, his granddaughter told the New York Times. But because of his disabilities that restricted him to a wheelchair, and his family’s insistence of going, he obliged.
Another victim, Jacki Sundheim was a longtime teacher at the North Shore Congregation Israel synagogue. She is survived by her husband Bruce and daughter Leah, the Times of Israel reported.
‘There are no words sufficient to express the depth of our grief for Jacki’s death,’ the synagogue said in a statement.
Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, who was in hospital with a gunshot wound to the arm and back of the head, died on Wednesday. His wife, Maria, was hit in the head by fragments, and his grandson received a gunshot wound to the arm but is stable.
On Wednesday, Katherine Goldstein’s daughter Cassie described how her mother was shot in the chest and fell down dead in front of her.
‘He shot her in the chest, and she fell down. And I knew she was dead,’ Cassie told NBC Nightly News. ‘So I just told her that I loved her, but I couldn’t stop because he was still shooting everyone next to me.’
Katherine Goldstein, pictured left, was among the people killed in the Highland Park parade mass shooting on July 4
Steve Straus, 88, (left) was among the seven people who were killed during the Highland Park Fourth of July parade massacre. Eduardo Uvaldo, 65, (right) died on Wednesday. Family said he had been shot in the arm and back of the head
A local doctor who rushed into the carnage described the shooting victims as being ‘blown up’ by the attacker’s high-powered weapon.
Dr. David Baum, a long-time obstetrician in Highland Park, was attending the parade with his wife and children to watch his two-year-old grandson participate. When the shots rang out and others fled, he ran into the fray to try to help the victims.
In an interview with CNN, Baum described seeing victims with ‘wartime’ and ‘unspeakable’ injuries.
‘The people who were gone were blown up by that gunfire,’ Baum said. ‘The horrific scene of some of those bodies is unspeakable for the average person.’
‘Having been a physician, I’ve seen things in ERs, you know, you do see lots of blood. But the bodies were literally – some of the bodies – there was an evisceration injury from the power of this gun and the bullets.’
‘There was another person who had an unspeakable head injury. Unspeakable,’ he said told CNN.
‘And the injuries that I saw – I never served – but those are wartime injuries. Those are what are seen in victims of war, not victims at a parade,’ Baum said.
Baum said there were at least three doctors, a nurse, and a nurse practitioner who joined him in treating victims. He recalled paramedics covering up victims who they knew were dead at the scene.
Steve Greenberg, the attorney for the shooter’s parents, insisted on Tuesday night that they had done ‘nothing wrong’
On Twitter, Greenberg has railed against the Illinois State Police for approving the FOID card Crimo’s father sponsored him for, however.
‘ISP should ask why did THEY approve a FOID card and why do THEY allow the sale of assault weapons?’
On Tuesday night, Greenberg admitted that he had been a friend of the family for years.
‘I’ve known these folks for 30 years now, until very recently I was a resident of the community. My role is to advise them on the law and help them through this process. I know the parents and I have met the son, many years ago. It’s a wonderful family.’
On Monday, before he knew that Crimo was the shooter, he tweeted: ‘This is my hometown where I grew up and raised my kids. WTF is wrong with people. No one needs these high powered weapons!!!!! F Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell and all like them’.
In September 2019, Illinois State Police received a ‘clear and present danger’ report related to Robert Crimo’s family after he threatened to kill himself and his family. They removed knives from the property, but later returned those, The Chicago Sun-Times reported.
Crimo, who was 19 at the time, was not arrested. He was two years under the legal age minimum to apply for the firearm owner’s identification (FOID) card needed to legally obtain a weapon.
But despite the murder-suicide threats, Crimo’s father sponsored him for a FOID card in December 2019, and it was approved a month later, in January 2020.
Officials have since said they approved the permit because there was ‘insufficient basis’ to deem Crimo dangerous, with the only record on his file a 2016 ordnance violation for possession of tobacco.
The attorney railed against gun laws on Twitter on Wedneaday
That meant Crimo was legally-able to buy the weapon used in Tuesday’s massacre.
He faces life in prison after being charged by the Illinois State’s Attorney’s office with seven counts of first-degree murder. Lake County State Attorney Eric Reinhart says Crimo faces ‘dozens’ of other charges related to the people he injured.
Police at first said that Crimo was not known to them but on Tuesday, they revealed he was interviewed twice by authorities in 2019.
The first was in April 2019 a week after he threatened to kill himself. The second was in September 2019, after he threatened to ‘kill everyone’ in his family.
Police recovered 16 knives, a dagger and sword from his home but he was not arrested.
Instead, he was able to turn 21 and buy two assault rifles in Illinois, along with three other types of gun. It remains unclear why the two previous incidents were not flagged when he legally purchased the weapons.
‘It’s just a tragedy all the way around. Imagine waking up one day and knowing that your loved one goes to a parade and gets killed. Imagine waking up one day and knowing that your child may never get out of jail.’
Durkin told DailyMail.com that he was first contacted by the suspect’s family on the day of the shooting and retained the following day.
He added that he did not have any further knowledge about the shooting other than what is already in the public domain.
The suspect’s father Bob Sr. ran unsuccessfully for mayor against Nancy Rotering. Rotering ran on a platform that included promoting gun control.
On Tuesday morning, Rotering confirmed that Crimo ‘legally obtained’ his weapon. She said she taught him when he was a cub scout, and that he was a normal ‘little boy’. Police are yet to confirm what type of weapon he used, but witnesses and videos suggest it was a high-powered rifle.
‘It’s one of those situations where you stand back and ask, what happened? How did somebody become this angry, this hateful, to then take it out on innocent people who were just literally having a family day out.?
‘He was just a little boy,’ she said.
The charges were announced in a press conference by the Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart the day after the July 4 parade shooting that claimed the lives of seven people and injured dozens more.
Each charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without the chance of parole.
In his remarks, Rinehart said that Crimo could be facing nearly a dozen further charges, including assault and attempted murder.
He said: ‘These are the first of many charges.’
During the press conference, Rinehart did not speculate on the motive for the shooting.
The attorney did praise red flag laws and called for a nationwide ban on assault rifles.
He added that when Crimo makes his first appearance in court via Zoom on July 6, prosecutors will be asking for the suspect to be held without bail.
Crimo’s father Bob Sr. was cornered by police as he arrives at home on Tuesday
Speaking about the 2019 incidents, Chris Covelli of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office disclosed the prior incidents at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.
In the April 2019 incident, ‘an individual contacted Highland Park department a week after learning of him attempting to suicide. It was a delayed report.
‘They responded to the residence, spoke to him, his parents and the matter was being handled with the mental health profession. There was no law enforcement action to be taken.
‘In September 2019, a family remember reported that he said he was going to “kill everyone” and that he had a collection of knives. They responded and took 16 knives and a dagger from his home.
‘There was no probable cause to arrest and no complaints assigned by the victims. They did notify the Illinois State Police.’
Bob Crimo Sr arriving home on Tuesday, talking on the phone
Police interviewing the father of Highland Park shooter on Tuesday. He has not yet issued any public comment
The suspect’s uncle told CNN that the FBI made contact with the family around 2:30 pm on the day of the shooting
Crimo is also accused of ‘sizing up’ the Central Avenue Synagogue in Highland Park, Illinois, according to the Times of Israel.
Rabbi Yosef Schanowitz is quoted by the website as saying that he recognized the suspect from an incident that occurred in April 2022. The rabbi said: ‘During the last Passover holiday, that person entered the Chabad synagogue. We have an armed security guard sitting in front… I approached him and sternly asked him to leave as I noticed he was not a member of our community.’
Crimo, 21, has not yet been charged for the massacre, but he remains in custody and is speaking with the authorities. He is shown yesterday fleeing the attack in disguise
In a separate interview with Forward.com, the congregation’s head of security Martin Blumenthal said of Crimo: ‘He was definitely sizing up the synagogue.’
Blumenthal said that Crimo was wearing all black clothes and black gloves ‘in the goth style.’ The head of security said that he checked Crimo’s backpack for weapons but didn’t find any.
He added: ‘He said his name was Bobby and he lived in the neighborhood. I watched him the whole time.’ Blumenthal added that Crimo then left on his bike.
Six of the seven people that were killed in the shooting have been named. They are Steve Straus, 88; Katherine Baldstein, 64; Jacki Sondheim, 63; Nicholas Toledo Zaragoza, 78; and husband and wife Irina and Kevin McCarthy, 35 and 37.
The McCarthys leave behind a two-year-old son, Aiden, who was found wandering alone in the aftermath of the shooting.
After the attack Monday, he fled among frightened paradegoers, pretending to be one of the victims, and went to his mother’s house.
Police said they do not think she knew that he was the shooter when he asked her for her car. She gave it to him and he fled the area.
It comes as questions over the gunman’s motive, lifestyle and his obsession with the numbers 47 arise.
Crimo had a 47 tattoo on his cheek and the numbers are emblazoned on the side of a car.
The vehicle was left abandoned in the front yard of his home on Tuesday, after it was raided by FBI agents. Crimo also posted the number all over his social media accounts, where he also shared ominous rap videos that glamorized school shootings.
The gunman’s car outside his home in Highland Park, Illinois, on Tuesday. He was obsessed with the number 47 – which is the date of July 4th in reverse
Highland Park shooter Bobby Crimo, right, with his mom Denise (main in red), half-sister Lynette (second left) and younger brother Sam in a 2017 photo
Bobby Crimo, 21, (right) with his little brother Sam (left). The pair attended Lincoln Elementary School and between 2008 and 2014, they attended the LEAP afterschool program. They were routinely the last kids to be picked up, according to coaches who taught them
The gunman opened fire at 10.14am on Monday, barely 15 minutes into the parade. He then fled the scene and hid throughout the day before eventually being arrested at 6.30pm in Lake Forrest, eight miles north of where the massacre unfolded