When Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering revealed Tuesday that she knew Robert “Bobby” Crimo, the 21-year-old accused of rain indiscriminately in a peaceful July 4 parade in an attack that killing seven and wounding dozens more, he expressed his surprise that a “little boy” from the cube scouts would somehow become a mass murderer.
But some of the people who grew up with Crimo, an aspiring YouTube rapper with tattoos and his music full of violent images, said they saw disturbing warning signs.
“There were a lot of red flags with him,” a former Highland Park High School classmate told The Daily Beast. “I told my teacher I didn’t want to sit next to him. It scared me a lot. “
Hours after Highland Park, a city better known as the backdrop for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Sixteen Candles, became the last mass shooting site in America, a community was struggling to prosecute why it became in a goal. And why the son of a prominent local businessman who ran for mayor had come down to a twisted online world obsessed with mass murder, memes and chaos, and whether he could have been stopped before it was too late.
By all accounts, Crimo was not a well-adapted teenager who suddenly deviated wildly over the past few weeks. On Tuesday, police revealed a September 2019 incident in which Crimo allegedly threatened to “kill everyone” in that family while grabbing 16 knives, a dagger and a sword. He had also attempted suicide that same April, police said.
Neither incident resulted in an arrest, which could have made it easier for him to legally buy the weapons police say he used to kill innocent people.
A review of Crimo’s social media posts, online speech, and music videos points to someone clearly obsessed with violent imagery, mass shootings, and high-profile killers. But conversations with people who know him suggested that while his behavior was sometimes disturbing, it was difficult to unpack his more mundane teen habits, such as his love of hip hop, from the potential for evil.
“I would always be showing violent things to everyone,” the former classmate himself added, noting that he had a class with Crimo and often acted. “Violent lyrics and music videos. I would try to promote his rap to everyone. “
Authorities have yet to make a clear picture of any motive behind the deadly shooting. But they said Crimo spent weeks planning the horrific attack launched from a rooftop, where he opened fire on those attending the random parade waiting for floats and bands below.
Deputy Chief Christopher Covelli, a spokesman for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, said Tuesday that Crimo wore women’s clothing during the attack “to hide his facial tattoos and identity, and to help him during the escape.” with … other people fleeing the chaos. ”
He then quickly mingled with the chaotic crowd before running to his mother’s house and borrowing her car, police said, noting that he legally obtained the weapon they recovered from the rooftop that Crimo supposedly used as a sniper nest.
Crimo has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder, Lake County State Attorney Eric Rinehart said Tuesday, noting that he expected more charges to be filed. He will face a bail hearing Wednesday morning.
On Tuesday, what appeared to be his mother’s home in Highland Park stood out in a well-kept neighborhood: grass and plants were covered in vegetation, and the front door glass almost fell off the glass when opened.
Denise Pesina sat on the sidewalk in a small white car while talking on the phone with the engine running. She cordially refused to answer questions, referring The Daily Beast to her lawyer.
No one opened the door to the home of Robert Crimo Jr., the father of the alleged shooter, where the 21-year-old lived in the apartment at the back of the property. It was not clear if and when the parents stopped living together.
A car with stickers is parked outside the home where Robert Crimo III lives in the Chicago suburb of Highwood, Illinois, on July 5, 2022.
Photo of MAX HERMAN / AFP via Getty Images
Although neither of Crimo’s parents responded to requests for comment, his lawyer told The Daily Beast that they were “absolutely shocked” by the allegations against their son.
Attorney Steven Greenberg, who previously represented R. Kelly, said the couple “doesn’t know what happened” during the parade, and what could have caused Crimo to get involved in such a horrific plot.
“No one thinks a tragedy of this magnitude will happen to their family. When they first learned about the shooting, they had no idea Bobby might be involved.”
Greenberg indicated that Crimo’s parents were aware that he had legally obtained several firearms in Illinois, but stressed that his clients never thought anything like Monday’s tragedy could happen. He suggested that they clung to the hope that the cops were somehow wrong: that “it turns out it’s not what it seems,” because no parent wants to wake up knowing that their child, whom they love and to those who have been raised, time may pass. ” the rest of his life in prison. “
Authorities arrested Crimo after a seven-hour human chase, when a North Chicago police officer saw the car he was believed to be driving. The 21-year-old flew, but was arrested after a brief chase in the Lake Forest. Inside the car, police said they found a second rifle legally purchased.
That Crimo’s parents weren’t exactly anyone made the shooting even more unsettling for some of his former classmates.
“His father ran a popular charcuterie in the area and even ran for mayor in 2019,” Mark Heymann, who was a year older than Crimo at school, told The Daily Beast, but he to say he had known the family for years.
Crimo Jr., who lost the race by a two-to-one margin to the starter, ran with the slogan “A person for the people.” A Facebook profile deleted since then suggests that Crimo’s mother was involved in the world of alternative medicine.
Jeremy Cahnmann, who ran an extracurricular sports program at Lincoln Elementary School, told Fox News that Crimo’s parents were always the last to pick him and his little brother after school. He said Crimo was only nine or 10 years old when he enrolled in the school’s Nerf football program.
“I remember my parents more than he did, because they were kind of a problem,” Cahnmann said. “The boy was very calm, he spoke very softly, he never had any problems.”
Several former classmates pointed out to The Daily Beast that Crimo was “quiet”: a “loner” who never spent time with a group. Heymann, who participated in cube scouts with Crimo in elementary school, said that “something [was] off, something was wrong with him “and he said he didn’t know” if he had friends “.
Another person who was in cube scouts with Crimo said he lost contact with him after high school, but remembered him as a quiet, soft-spoken skatepark boy.
“He was definitely judged a bit by his Gothic image,” the former acquaintance told The Daily Beast. “In Highland Park, it’s not the most typical.”
But the same former classmate said Crimo’s father’s deli, Bob’s Pantry, was a popular spot in Highland Park and he often saw Crimo behind the counter, lending a hand to the family business. In that sense, he looked like a normal child.
“It was never a problem” in high school, the former classmate said, in contrast to other interviewees.
Ethan Absler, another student who was a year ahead of Crime in high school, insisted the suspect had a “red flag of behavior.” Specifically, Absler said, he was very challenging in class, incessantly promoted his music, and was “the kind of student where teachers realized that they should discipline him differently or be more realistic about his behavior. “.
But the former comrade still felt there was “nothing to indicate he was capable of anything” like Monday’s shooting. From Absler’s perspective, Crimo “led, like, a double secret life we didn’t know.”
Photo of MAX HERMAN / AFP via Getty Images
In high school, Heymann added, Crimo began posting rap songs on YouTube and was called Awake the Rapper on social media. Online, he posted several violent music videos, including a raw animation depicting a gunman murdered by police. In another, Crimo is inside an empty classroom dressed in tactical gear and with an American flag.
NBC News reported that Crimo had his own Discord channel that was turned off after the shooting, and that he frequented a message board dedicated to the death, where he posted a video of the beheading.
Crime’s posts also showed that he wore a Trump flag as a cloak. Another photo of Crime showed him at a Trump rally, dressed as Waldo. But he also liked a Twitter video of President Biden, and no clear picture of political extremism emerged in the hours following the attack.
Two of Crimo’s online friends who also produce music told Rolling Stone that even though he struggled with mental health issues and didn’t have many friends in real life, they lost key warning signs.
“He knew there was something in his head that was wrapping up with him,” said Nodfather, an independent producer who was friends with Crimo for years after meeting him at Discord. “In all honesty, much of it was isolated.”
The former high school classmate who recalled Crimo showing violent content to his classmates noted that he once had trouble hanging stickers promoting his music on school property.
Although the classmate mostly forgot about Crimo for the following years, he said he wondered if he could be the shooter of the parade upon learning that a suspicious younger white man was alone.
“That’s really weird, but I was telling someone,‘ It must be someone from Highland Park I know, ’and one of the first things I …