Cops were on a wild goose chase, until they discovered the gunman was Robert ‘Bobby’ Crimo, dressed up as a woman to carry out his attack.
Using the guise of becoming a woman helped Crimo escape the crowds after going on his rampage.
Crimo, 21, has not yet been charged for the massacre but he remains in custody and is speaking with the authorities.
Police revealed that he legally owned multiple weapons including two rifles. Crimo used one gun in the attack and the other was found in his car when he was arrested at 6:30 p.m.
Crimo has yet to explain his actions or what the motive was behind the attack. However, police did state that he had been planning the attack for weeks.
Police revealed Crimo purchased the semi-automatic weapon, one other rifle, and more unspecified weapons at a local store. He legally purchased the two rifles along with other guns in the local area, despite a ban on assault rifles in Highland Park, buying them at multiple locations.
He fired 70 rounds from the roof of a local store before disregarding the gun and running into the crowd himself.
Police went on to report that Crimo walked to his mother’s house and asked for her car. His mother had no idea what her son had just done. She let him borrow her car, which he used to flee the area and drove 8 miles north before he was arrested.
Crimo is still undergoing intensive investigation to determine his motives and any more evidence crucial to the case.
Police are also trying to figure out what Crimo’s obsession with the number 47 means. Crimo had a 47 tattoo on his cheek and the numbers are emblazoned on the side of a car at his home.
The vehicle was left abandoned in the front yard on Tuesday after the home 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.
It’s unclear what the significance is; 47 is the date of July 4th in reverse.
His parents, including his local politician father, has not yet addressed his role in the massacre but his uncle said he was a ‘quiet kid’ who kept largely to himself.
Paul Crimo, his uncle, has since told how he was behaving normally on Sunday night. He claims he showed ‘no signs of violence’, despite YouTube rap videos in which he glamorized school shootings. The shooter’s motive for yesterday’s attack remains unknown.
“I’m heartbroken. I’m so heartbroken. There were no signs that I saw that would make him do this. He’s a quiet kid. He’s usually on his own. He’s a lonely, quiet person. He keeps everything to himself,” his uncle said.
“Everything was as normal,” he said. “He was sitting on a recliner in his home the night before the shooting, looking at his computer. We are good people here, and to have this is devastating. I’m so heartbroken for all the families who lost their lives.”
Crimo’s parents have not yet addressed the attack. His father Bob Sr. ran unsuccessfully for mayor against Nancy Rotering.
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.
Rotering also called for greater gun reform and said that while the gunman clearly had a mental breakdown, the issue is not with mental health but with guns being legal.
Some countered that statement and said if we address mental illness first then there would be no issues with guns and other weapons. It’s the mental illness that triggers these behaviors not guns.
“I don’t know where it came from but I do know it was legally obtained. At some point this nation needs to have a conversation about these weekly events involving the murder of dozens of people with legally obtained guns. If that’s what our laws stand for, we need to re-examine the laws. Our values are askew. Yesterday we came together to celebrate independence and freedom after two years of not having a parade,” Rotering continued to say.
“We were ready to come together and celebrate our nation and as a result, because of this gun culture, our nation turned its back on us. We have to have a very strong conversation with ourselves. I don’t know how many more of these incidents need to occur, we’ve been talking about this literally for decades at this point.”
Crimo also goes by Awake the Rapper, has more than 16,000 listeners per month on Spotify.
Music videos posted by Crimo online last fall include a drawing of himself shooting people online, and a disturbing clip of himself throwing bullets on the floor of a classroom while wearing armor in what appears to be a joke about school shootings.
Crimo also had a Discord server where he would chat with friends and fans, and his most recent post was a picture of Budd Dwyer, the Pennsylvania state treasurer who killed himself on live TV in the 1980s, which he captioned: “I wish politicians still gave speeches like this.”
He also made references to suicide and frequently posted on a message board discussing graphic depictions of murder and death, including a recent video he shared of a beheading.
All these actions definitely hinted at a mental health issue and Crimo seems to have needed help for awhile before he snapped.
In his most recent tweet from October 2021 on his artist Twitter page, the suspect tweeted: “I am not a robot.”
The gunman’s attack began less than 15 minutes after the start of the parade. Witnesses have now told how they saw children being picked off in the crowd.
Chilling videos replay how the gunman first unleashed one long hail of bullets before stopping, presumably to reload, and then resuming fire.
Brigham Temple, the medical director of emergency preparedness for Northshore university health system, said they received 20 patients aged between eight and 85 and 10 of them by ambulance.
Four of the five patients were children, he said. One of the children who arrived at Northshore was too critically ill to be transported initially. He was stabilized and airlifted to a children’s hospital in Chicago.
Temple said some of the patients were in critical condition.
Of the 25 who arrived at the hospital with gunshot wounds, 19 were treated and discharged home.
The media needs to stop using words like gun culture! That is absolute b*******. There’s not such a thing as a gun culture in this country. There are millions of people that own firearms and always have on firearms in this country since the beginning of the country! To call it gun culture just because you own firearms implies that you’re some kind of criminal capable of doing this b******* f*** the media
This media site didn’t use that terminology, they simply quoted it. It was stated by the Mayor (Rotering).
Looking at this guy I guess he’s the new normal. There was a time when just seeing him would have set off red flags. Manson would be proud.
Dressing as a girl will come in handy in prison.
the way these people are today and have been raised: do NOT SELL A GUN TO ANYBODY UNDER $%! It seems that age and younger are the people going nuts!
thats 45 years old ! Min age to purchase a gun 45 years old the whack jobs seem to start at that age and younger!
He’s another murderous libereal.