Updated: 11:15am (AEST)
Highland Park, Illinois, US
Reuters
The man accused of opening fire with a rifle from a rooftop onto a crowd of people watching a July Fourth parade near Chicago, turning the holiday celebration into another national tragedy, was charged on Tuesday with seven counts of first-degree murder.
If convicted, the suspect, 21-year-old Robert E Crimo III, would face a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, Illinois states attorney Eric Reinhart said in announcing the charges at a news conference.
People’s belongings lie abandoned along the parade route after a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois, US on 5th July. PICTURE: Reuters/Cheney Orr
Reinhart said the first-degree murder charges would be followed by dozens of additional charges before the investigation is over. The prosecutor said he would ask that Crimo remain held in custody without bail at the suspect’s first court appearance, scheduled for Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear if Crimo had a lawyer.
PARENTS OF BOY, TWO, FOUND ALONE AT PARADE SHOOTING AMONG DEAD
Aiden McCarthy’s photo was shared across Chicago-area social media groups in the hours after the 4th July parade shooting in Highland Park, accompanied by pleas to help identify the 2-year-old who had been found at the scene bloodied and alone and to reunite him with his family.
On Tuesday, friends and authorities confirmed that the boy’s parents, Kevin McCarthy, 37, and Irina McCarthy, 35, were among seven people killed in the tragedy.
Brooke and Matt Strauss, who were married Sunday, pause after leaving their wedding bouquets in downtown Highland Park near the scene of Monday’s mass shooting on Tuesday, 5th July, in Highland Park, Illinois. PICTURE: AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast.
“At two years old, Aiden is left in the unthinkable position; to grow up without his parents,” wrote Irina Colon on a GoFundMe account she created for the family and Aiden, who was reunited with his grandparents Monday evening.
Friends of the McCarthys said Irina’s parents would care for the boy going forward.
Four of other others who were killed were identified Tuesday as Katherine Goldstein, 64; Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63; Stephen Straus, 88; and Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78. Every victim was from Highland Park except for Toledo-Zaragoza, who was visiting family in the city from Morelos, Mexico.
Officials haven’t yet identified the seventh victim.
Portraits of some of those who died began to emerge Tuesday as investigators continued to search for evidence in the shooting that killed at least seven and wounded 30.
Irina McCarthy’s childhood friend, Angela Vella, described McCarthy as fun, personable and “somewhat of a tomboy” who still liked to dress up nicely.
“She definitely had her own style, which I always admired,” Vella said in a short interview.
Straus, a Chicago financial adviser, was one of the first observers at the parade and attended it every year, his grandchildren said.
Brothers Maxwell and Tobias Straus described their grandfather as a kind and active man who loved walking, biking and attending community events.
“The way he lived life, you’d think he was still middle-aged,” Maxwell Straus said in an interview.
The two brothers recalled Sunday night dinners with their grandparents as a favorite tradition. They said they ate with him the night before he was killed.
“America’s gun culture is killing grandparents,” said Maxwell Straus. “It’s very just terrible.”
Sundheim, meanwhile, was regaled as a lifelong congregant and “beloved” staff member at North Shore Congregation Israel, where she had worked for decades, the Reform synagogue said on its website. Sundheim taught at the synagogue’s preschool and coordinated events including bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies.
“Jacki’s work, kindness and warmth touched us all,” synagogue leaders wrote in a message on their website. “There are no words sufficient to express the depth of our grief for Jacki’s death and sympathy for her family and loved ones.”
Toledo-Zaragoza was killed on what his 23-year-old granddaughter, Xochil Toledo, said was supposed to be a “fun family day” that “turned into a horrific nightmare for us all.”
On a GoFundMe page to raise money for Toledo’s funeral expenses, Xochil Toledo said her grandfather was a “loving man, creative, adventurous and funny.”
“As a family we are broken, numb,” she said.
Toledo-Zaragoza had come to Illinois to visit his family about two months ago, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. His family wanted him to stay permanently because of injuries he had suffered after being hit by a car a couple years ago during an earlier visit to Highland Park. The newspaper reported that he was hit by three bullets Monday and died at the scene.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to attend the parade because of the large crowds and his limited mobility, which required him to use a walker, but Xochil Toledo said the family didn’t want to leave him alone.
– GRANT SCHULTE, CLAIRE SAVAGE and HARM VENHUIZEN/AP
Authorities said Crimo had planned the attack for weeks and had come to authorities’ attention at least twice before on reports that he threatened suicide or harm to others, local officials said on Tuesday.
Authorities said the suspect fired more than 70 rounds from a rooftop at random onto people watching Monday’s parade in Highland Park, Illinois, and then made his getaway dressed in a disguise to blend in with the panic-stricken crowd, authorities said on Tuesday.
In addition to the seven people killed in the gunfire, the attack sent more than three dozen other people to area hospitals for treatment of gunshot wounds and other injuries, authorities said.
After fleeing the scene, the suspect drove to Wisconsin and back to Illinois before he was pulled over and arrested later on Monday, according to Sergeant Chris Covelli, a spokesperson for the Lake County Sheriff’s office.
At a late-afternoon news briefing on Tuesday, Covelli cited two previous encounters between Crimo and law enforcement – an April, 2019, emergency-911 call reporting he had attempted suicide and another in September of that year regarding alleged threats he had directed at family members.
Police responding to the second incident seized a collection of 16 knives, a dagger and a sword amassed by Crimo in his home, though no arrest was made as authorities at the time lacked probable cause to take him into custody, Covelli said.
“There were no complaints that were signed by any of the victims,” Covelli explained.
Police revised the confirmed casualty toll from the shooting with the death of a seventh person who succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday.
Among the dead were Nicholas Toledo, a grandfather from Mexico in his 70s celebrating with his family among the flag-waving crowds at Monday’s parade, and Jacki Sundheim, a teacher at a nearby synagogue.
Crimo, who has distinctive facial tattoos apparently tried to conceal his identity on Monday as he made his getaway, Covelli told reporters.
“He blended right in with everybody else as they were running around, almost as if he was an innocent spectator as well,” Covelli said. The suspect fled to his mother’s house nearby, and later borrowed his mother’s car.
The shooting took place in a neighborhood with a large Jewish population, but police had no evidence of any anti-Semitic or racist basis. Investigators were reviewing videos he had made filled with violent imagery.
The suspect used a high-powered rifle for the attack, similar to an AR-15, which he dropped at the scene.
He had a similar rifle in his mother’s car, which he was driving when taken into custody by police, and owned other guns, all of which were bought legally in Illinois, officials said. In all, Crimo had purchased five firearms, including rifles and handguns.
“Still reeling”
Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering said the community of 30,000 was still in shock.
“This tragedy should have never arrived at our doorsteps,” she told NBC News. “As a small town, everybody knows somebody who was affected by this directly and, of course, we are all still reeling.”
President Joe Biden ordered US flags to be flown at half-staff in mourning until sunset on Saturday.
The US Supreme Court last month asserted a constitutional right to carry weapons in public in a ruling that made it easier for pro-gun groups to overturn modern gun regulations. It has since thrown out a lower court ruling upholding Maryland’s ban on assault weapons.
A recent string of deadly mass shootings, including an attack that left 19 school children and two teachers dead in Uvalde, Texas, on 24th May, just 10 days after 10 Black people were slain in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, has renewed US debate about gun safety.
Congress last month passed its first major federal gun reform in three decades, providing federal funding to states that administer “red flag” laws intended to remove guns from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.
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The law does not ban sales of assault-style rifles or high-capacity magazines but does take some steps on background checks by allowing access to information on significant crimes committed by juveniles.
Rotering, the city’s mayor, said she knew the suspect when he was a little boy and a Cub Scout and she was a Cub Scout leader.
POPE CALLS FOR REJECTION OF VIOLENCE
Pope Francis called Tuesday for a rejection of violence and respect for life as he mourned the dead from the “senseless shooting” during an Independence Day parade in suburban Chicago.
In a telegram of condolence to Chicago’s archbishop, Francis said he was praying for the people killed Monday and for “healing and consolation to the injured and bereaved.”
Quoting the Bible, he called for for everyone to “reject violence in all its forms and respect life in all its stages.”
The telegram to Cardinal Blase Cupich was signed by Francis’ secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
– AP
“What happened? How did somebody become this angry, this hateful?” she said. “Our nation needs to have a conversation about these weekly events involving the murder of dozens of people with legally obtained guns.”
The suspect’s father, Bob Crimo, ran Bob’s Pantry and Deli in Highland Park for at least 18 years, according to a Chicago Tribune business profile. Bob Crimo closed the deli in 2019 before he unsuccessfully ran against Rotering for mayor of Highland Park.
Online social media posts written by the suspect or his rapper alias, “Awake The Rapper”, often depicted violent images or messages.
One music video posted to YouTube under Awake The Rapper showed drawings of a stick figure holding a rifle in front of another figure spread on the ground.
– Additional reporting by KANISHKA SINGH, JONATHAN ALLEN, TYLER CLIFFORD, CHRISTOPHER GALLAGHER, CHRISTOPHER WALLJASPER and DOINA CHIACU.
