Robert E. Crimo III, 22, the man accused of killing six people and wounding dozens with gunshot wounds during a US Independence Day celebration outside Chicago, was a local rapper and member of a well-known family in the small town of Highland Park, where the crime took place on Monday (4).
The young man, who was currently unemployed, published content on Youtube and other platforms and would not have given signs to his family that he could carry out actions like this, an uncle of Crimo told CNN. “He’s a quiet boy, alone, he keeps everything to himself.”
The content published by Crimo, who was detained by the police, was excluded from the internet by the responsible platforms. But American newspapers that accessed the videos before they were deleted described them as rife with evidence of gun violence.
In one of his videos that had the most notifications, titled “Are you Awake”, an animation shows a man shooting with a rifle. In another, “Toy Soldier”, a character appears lying on his stomach in a pool of blood, surrounded by police, according to CNN’s description.
Paul A. Crimo, the young man’s uncle, claims that his brother had run for Mayor of Highland Park and is on good terms with many in the city. Crimo was known as “Awake The Rapper”.
It is unclear whether the young man had political affiliations. Bennett Brizes, who became friends with Crimo around 2015, told the Washington Post that he was “apolitical” and that when asked about current episodes in politics, the friend would only respond “Man, I don’t know”. The two lost touch in 2019, but Brizes describes Crimo as someone who was depressed and was described as awkward by others.
The attack in small Highland Park was the 309th mass shooting and the 15th such episode this year that left multiple people injured in the United States, according to data from the Gun Violence Achieve, a project that since 2013 has monitored gun violence in the country on a daily basis.
The governor of Illinois, where the city is located, JB Pritzker, in a statement asked people to pray for the families who were directly affected by the episode. But he, a Democrat, quickly warned: “Prayers alone will not end the terror of gun violence in our country; we must and will end this plague.”
The state has the sixth-strongest gun safety law in the US and the ninth-most gun ownership rate, according to the NGO Everytown for Gun Safety, which advocates for tighter gun control. There is, for example, background checks for the purchase of handguns.
“Although a leader in enacting gun violence prevention laws, Illinois continues to experience an unacceptable rate of violence, close to the national average,” says the NGO. The explanation, he says, lies in the fact that the state is surrounded by regions with much weaker laws, such as Indiana. “A huge portion of the weapons trafficked and recovered in Illinois was purchased out of state,” the website reports.
A little less than a month ago, Governor Pritzker signed a law that bans the sale and possession of so-called “ghost weapons” – those without a serial number that are usually sold disassembled, which helps to circumvent bureaucracy.
“Those who create, sell and buy these weapons know they are working to circumvent laws that ensure firearms stay away from traffickers and abusers,” he said at the time.
Most of the victims of the episode have not yet been identified. One of those killed, Nicolas Toledo, was 76 years old and was sitting in his wheelchair when he was shot at least three times, his granddaughter Xochil told The New York Times.
The family created a crowdfunding online platform to raise money to send the body back to Nicolas’ home country of Mexico. More than US$ 36 thousand (R$ 193 thousand) had been raised until the morning of this Tuesday (5).
Another of the victims is Jacki Sundheim, who collaborated with a synagogue in Chicago. “Jacki’s work, kindness and affection touched all of us, always with tireless dedication,” the North Shore Israeli Congregation said in a statement.
A witness told the WGN9 channel that, when he heard the shots and saw people running, he even hid his son in a dump so he could go looking for the other family members.
