Highland Park shooter dressed as a woman and fled with the crowd

The Highland Park shooting suspect Robert ‘Bobby’ Crimo dressed up as a woman to carry out yesterday’s attack and was able to flee in the crowd in disguise, cops revealed on Tuesday. 

Crimo, 21, has not yet been charged for the massacre but he remains in custody and is speaking with the authorities. 

Police on Tuesday revealed that he legally owned multiple weapons including two rifles – one that was used in the attack and another that was found in his vehicle when he was arrested at 6.30pm last night. 

Crimo’s motive remains unclear, but police say he had been plotting the attack for weeks. 

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.

On Monday, after the attack, he fled among frightened paradegoers, pretending to be one of the victims, and went to his mother’s house. 

It’s unclear if he told her what he had done or if she is being treated as a suspect, but he took her car.  

It comes as questions over the young 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 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. The next President will also be the 47th. 

Crimo is a Trump fan and previously attended his rallies. 

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,’ Paul Crimo, his uncle, told CNN. 

‘Everything was as normal,’ he said, adding that 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.

‘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.

‘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.

‘It’s one of those things where you ask yourself, if this reflects the values of who we are then what does this say about us as a nation?

‘Someone clearly had a mental breakdown but I don’t want to ascribe it to mental health. I want to talk about the fact that there are weapons of war on our streets that people can legally obtain and take out dozens of people. Our community is never going to recover from this wound. This is an absolutely devastating blow to all of us.

‘Why do we as a nation allow this to happen with such regularity? I can’t tell you how many mayors I heard from yesterday… it was like “here we are again”. I never thought I would be one of “those mayors”, well none of us do.

‘This is unbelievable to me that this is an acceptable part of who we are as a nation,’ she fumed during an appearance on TODAY.  

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.

Among those killed was synagogue teacher Jacki Sundheim, a married mother, and grandfather Nicolas Toledo, 78. Four others have not yet been named. 

Another 25 people aged between eight and 85 suffered gunshot wounds. Six people remain in hospital. 

The US has now seen 309 mass shootings so far this year in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, were shot or killed. 

Eleven alone took place over the holiday weekend.

President Joe Biden said he and his wife Jill were ‘shocked by the senseless gun violence that has yet again brought grief to an American community on this Independence Day’, and vowed to continue the fight against the shooting ‘epidemic’. Kamala Harris is expected to visit Chicago today but it is not known if she will meet victims.

Crimo was arrested after an hours long manhunt that involved local and federal authorities. It has now emerged his father Bob Sr, 58, is a local deli owner who once ran for mayor, while his mom Denise Pesina, 48, was once arrested on suspicion of domestic battery.

She appears to have become a Mormon and is also into alternative therapies, according to her Facebook page. 

Crimo has two siblings, including a 27 year-old sister called Lynette Pesina, with the family residing in a comfortable $425,000 home in Highwood, close to the scene of the shooting. 

In 2020, Crimo was pictured attending a Donald Trump rally while dressed as Where’s Waldo. 

Another picture has emerged showing the suspect wrapped in a Donald Trump flag. 

At one of the rallies that Crimo was pictured at in Northbrook, Illinois, the Chicago Tribune described it as ‘tense ‘ but said that there was no arrests made as counter-protesters showed up at the event. The ex-president was not present at that rally.

The suspect’s IMDb page describes him as being the middle child of three who grew up in an Italian-American family in Highland Park, Illinois. 

The suspect’s ties to the community go back as far as his grandfather, Robert Crimo, who was born in Highland Park in 1929. Robert Crimo died in 2018. 

His obituary names the suspect’s parents as Bob Jr. and Denise. Most of the family mentioned in the tribute live in the Highland Park-area. 

The family lives along Pleasant Avenue in Highwood, just north of Highland Park. 

Their home is located across the street from Oak Terrace Elementary School.   

In April 2019, Crimo’s father ran for mayor in Highland Park. 

It does not appear that his campaign was backed by a political party. His slogan was a: ‘A Person for the People.’

Bob Crimo was defeated by the town’s current mayor, Nancy Rotering, a liberal, who ran her campaign partly on a platform about gun control.  

In a pre-election profile, Bob Crimo said that he was the owner of two restaurants in the area, White Hen in Ravinia and Bob’s Pantry & Deli in Braeside, Illinois. 

He wrote in the profile: ‘I’m running as mayor as a person for the people in our community.’

He continued: ‘It’s my way of giving back to the community who have been so supportive of me over the years. I live local and I will stay local.’ 

In a 2018 feature with the Chicago Tribune, Bob Crimo was pictured with Denise Pesina. 

He describes his restaurant as a ‘family-run and family-orientated store.’ 

In February 2015, Pesina was arrested in Highland Park on charges of domestic battery while driving, reported Patch.com at the time. 

Further details on the outcome of that case have not been shared. 

Following his defeat, Bob Crimo wrote on Facebook: ‘This has been a great experience. I cannot thank my supporters enough. 

‘Although the polls weren’t in my favor, I will continue to do my best to further the improvement of Highland Park for my fellow neighbors. Thank you all so much again.’

While on his Twitter page, Bob Crimo follows one account, an archived account of ex-President Donald Trump’s tweets. 

On May 27, three days after 19 children and two teachers were slaughtered at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Bob Crimo liked a tweet that read: ‘Protect the Second Amendment like your life depends on it.’ 

The suspect’s mother, Denise Pesina, is a healer with a business named Trilogy Energy Systems. 

She regularly posts revealing photos of herself on her Facebook, often while posing with her sphinx cat Sanjay. 

According to the company’s mission statement: ‘Trilogy Energy Systems is committed to the wellbeing of ALL energy systems. 

‘A FULL SPECTRUM HEALING cooperative. One person has the ability to influence innumerous lives.’

The profile on that page says that Pesina studied at Traditional Chinese Medicine at Shanghai University and at the The Ayurvedic Institute, a New Mexico-based school that teaches the principles and practices of Ayurveda, an alternative medicine teaching.

In one of the suspect’s songs, Crimo rapped: ‘My actions will be valiant and my thought is unnecessary, I know what I have to do, I know what’s in it, not only for me, but for everyone else.  

According to the FBI, Crimo’s has tattoos showing four tally marks with a line through them on his right cheek, red roses and green leaves on his neck and cursive script above his left eyebrow that reads: ‘Awake.’ 

The feds said that Crimo has ties in the communities of Rockford, DeKalb and Elgin in Illinois.    

An IMDb page about the suspect describes him as a ‘rapper, singer, songwriter, actor and director from Chicago.’

The most viewed video on the rapper’s YouTube channel is the music video for his song: ‘On My Mind.’ The video, showing a the suspect in a classroom. 

Crimo operated two channels both of which have been deleted for ‘violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.’

The track begins as a slow ballad, including the lines: ‘You’re always on my mind. Cutie with the fat ass, I wanna make you mine. I’m running out of time. Shorty we can skip class, smoke and chill online.’

The song has a sudden change in tempo and shows Crimo reaching into a backpack. The screen goes black and when the music returns it’s dubbed with maniacal laughter and, fast paced piano music and a heavy drum beat. 

The video then shows the classroom ransacked with the suspect smiling. 

Crimo is clad in a combat helmet as he falls to the floor clutching his face and dropping bullets to the floor. 

 The bio goes on to say that his music career began when he was 11 when Crimo began uploading music online. 

His music is in the genre of LoFi rap, according to his Spotify page. He has released three albums, the first in 2017 titled ‘Messages,’ that was followed with 2018’s ‘Observer’ and 2021’s self-titled ‘Awake the Rapper.’ 

This year he released an EP titled: ‘Brainwashed.’ The tracks included: ‘Dead Again’ and ‘I Am the Storm.’ 

Crimo has an average of 16,46 listens per month on Spotify. 

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 obtained by DailyMail.com 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 – 10 of them by ambulance.

Four of 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.

One had to be transferred to Evanston hospital. Two patients are still being treated at Northshore. 

‘It is a little surreal to take care of an event such as this,’ he said.

‘But all of us have undergone extensive training.’

He said there was a team of therapists and counsellors standing by. His hospital was one of three taking in patients from the parade shooting.

Witnesses described seeing children being shot at the parade. All of the confirmed deaths so far are those of adults.

Abandoned chairs, strollers, and blankets – once being used by families celebrating the holiday – were left behind in the chaos. 

Bloodied bodies were strewn on the ground in the immediate aftermath of the shooting as people frantically fled from the area.  

‘All of a sudden everyone behind us started running. I looked back, probably 20 feet away from me, I saw a girl shot and killed. I saw her die. I’ve never seen anything like this,’ a woman, who gave her name only as Zoe, told CNN. 

Police say they recovered a ‘rifle’ at the scene but witnesses described multiple rounds being fired in quick succession which they say could only have come from a semi-automatic. 

‘A rifle? No, no. It was an automatic weapon. It was pop, pop, pop – rifles don’t do that,’ she said. 

President Biden – who has been calling for gun reform since the Uvalde shooting on May 24 which claimed 19 lives – issued a statement on Monday afternoon. 

He said he had given his support to the Governor of Illinois and the Highland Park Mayor, and he celebrated his recent passing of a gun control bill.

‘I recently signed the first major bipartisan gun reform legislation in almost thirty years into law, which includes actions that will save lives. 

‘But there is so much more work to do, and I’m not going to give up fighting the epidemic of gun violence,’ he said.

How shooter climbed ladder to stage rooftop massacre and then disappeared for more than EIGHT hours before cops finally arrested him in dramatic traffic stop   

On July 4, a gunman shot and killed six people and wounded 24 more during an independence day parade in the affluent Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois. 

The suspect in the shooting has been named as local man Robert ‘Bobby’ Crimo III, 21. 

Crimo was arrested more than eight hours after the shooting following a multi-agency manhunt. He was taken into custody not far from where the shooting took place. 

Dramatic photographs from the scene show the suspected mass-murderer – who posted creepy clips about shooting massacres online – being pinned to the ground face-down by police. 

A total of 26 victims aged between eight and 85 were injured, with six still receiving hospital treatment. The area has a large Jewish community, although police have yet to share a possible motive for Monday’s slaughter. 

DailyMail.com has pieced together the key moments from Monday’s shootings, based on information so-far shared by investigators

1. Shooter opens fire from rooftop of outdoor supplies store around 10am local time  

According to authorities, the violence began approximately 10:15 am local time, around 15 minutes after the parade began. 

Reports say that the gunman climbed an unsecured ladder that was attached to Gearhead Outfitters, an outdoor equipment store formerly known as Uncle Dan’s. 

At that point, Crimo opened fire on the crowd, killing six and injuring dozens more in including the elderly and children. It has not been confirmed for how long the shooting went on for.    

Witnesses have now told how they saw children being picked off in the crowd. 

The type of gun used by Crimo in the attack has not been confirmed. Investigators have so far only referred to it as a high-powered rifle.

A witness named Zoe described the scene saying: ‘All of a sudden everyone behind us started running. I looked back, probably 20 feet away from me, I saw a girl shot and killed. I saw her die. I’ve never seen anything like this,’ according to CNN. 

Police say they recovered a ‘rifle’ at the scene but witnesses described multiple rounds being fired in quick succession which they say could only have come from a semi-automatic. 

‘A rifle? No, no. It was an automatic weapon. It was pop, pop, pop – rifles don’t do that,’ she said. 

Law enforcement who were at the parade responded to the shooting but Crimo quickly fled the scene in a 2010 Honda Fit prompting a multi-agency manhunt.

2. FBI agents search Crimo’s $425,000 family home, which sits just six minutes drive from the location of the shooting  

Crimo lives in a small apartment behind his family home along Pleasant Avenue in Highwood, just north of Highland Park. His uncle, Paul Crimo, told CNN that he saw his nephew at home the night before the shooting. 

It sits just 1.5 miles away from Gearhads, and is around six minutes drive away from the location of the shooting when traffic is light.  

The home is valued at over $400,000. Paul Crimo says that he lives in the home too. When he last saw the suspect, Paul Crimo says: ‘Everything was as normal’

He said that the home is owned by the suspect’s father, Bob Crimo. The FBI made contact with the family around 2:30 pm. Crimo’s father gave investigators permission to search the home.

Paul Crimo went on to tell CNN: ‘He’s a quiet kid. He’s usually on his own. He’s a lonely, quiet person. He keeps everything to himself.’

It’s not clear at what time he left the home to begin his rampage. 

3. A subsequent manhunt for Crimo ends with his dramatic roadside arrest just before 7:00 pm

The shooter’s uncle Paul Crimo said he was first contacted by the FBI at 2:30 pm local time, reports CNN.  

In an evening news conference around 5pm, law enforcement named Crimo as a suspect in the shooting. 

Crimo was described as being between 18 and 20 with long black hair, white, ‘slight build’ and wearing a t-shirt. His  car was described and cops gave out his license plate number.

Around 7:00 pm local time, authorities said in a brief news conference that Crimo was in custody, having been arrested around 30 minutes earlier. 

According to Chief Lou Jogmen of the Highland Park Police, Crimo was first spotted by members of a North Chicago police unit. Jogmen said that Crimo fled when officers attempted to pull him over. 

Following a brief chase, Crimo came to a stop and was arrested Lake Forest, Illinois, not far from the where the shooting occurred.  

July Fourth victim shows her horrific facial injury after being grazed by bullet 

A young woman who survived the July 4 Chicago gun massacre that killed six has shared distressing images of the facial injuries she suffered.   

 This victim, known only by the Twitter handle Lili, began posting photos around noon on July 4, just hours after the shooting began. 

The first photo shows blood pouring down her face, neck and on to her chest. She wrote in the caption: ‘I cant f**king believe i was in the middle of a mass shooting. 

‘I’ve felt safe at this parade for 18 years and today I got hit with a bullet and nothing will change in America this is ridiculous.’

In a subsequent video, Lili showed a close-up of a deep laceration high on her cheek, just inches from her brain. She confirmed that the laceration was after being grazed by a bullet.

Afterward, she then posted a photo of the gunman writing: ‘This is the c**t who killed and injured innocent people.’ 

Lili posted photos of the stitches covering her wound saying: ‘My aftermath of the Highland Park shooting. I’m still in shock. I am so sorry for everyone who lost loved ones today.’  

Another photo shows blood drenched on to Lili’s jeans and sneakers. In a reply to one well-wisher, Lili says that she already has a session booked with a trauma therapist for July 5. 

In a later photo, Lili gives a statement to a police officer. 

By the time that Lili’s boyfriend got to the hospital to comfort her, the hospital was on lockdown. Later, Lily said that she was reunited with him and that: ‘He brought me flowers and stuffed animals and his comfort blanket and let me cry to him and made me feel so safe.’ 

Lili also took time to highlight vicious trolls who accused her of being a ‘crisis actor,’ someone who pretends to have been injured in an incident as a means to generate political sympathy. 

In her last tweet, Lili wrote: ‘I want to thank everyone whos interacting with and sharing my post , I didn’t post for attention to myself, I wanted to share the reality of what is happening to so many people, and help people realize that things NEED to change. Thank you guys for your well wishes and support.’