Highland Park shooting: Robert Crimo’s parents say they had ‘zero’ role in July 4 parade attack

Nearly $3m (£2.5m) has been raised for a toddler who lost both his parents in the mass shooting at the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park.

Kevin McCarthy, 37, and Irina McCarthy, 35, were among the seven people who were killed in the shooting spree. During the commotion, their two-year-old son Aiden was split up from his parents.

Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering told NBC News that the child’s father, 37-year-old McCarthy, died shielding his son from the gunshots raining down on the parade route on Monday.

Ms Rotering said the image of Aiden, who also lost mother Irina, would “haunt” her for the rest of her life.

A pair of San Francisco musicians who were scheduled to play at this weekend’s Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois have cancelled their concerts in light of the mass shooting the ripped through the city on the 4th of July holiday weekend.

Michael Franti and Spearhead were set to to perform on 9 July, but said in a Twitter post that they’d be pulling out of the show out of “deep respect for the Highland Park community and the lives lost in this senseless act of violence”.

“Our shared hope is that the reduced activity, both within the park and in the neighbourhoods surrounding Ravinia, will give the community the space and quiet to reflect and heal,” Mr Franti wrote in a Twitter post.

Police Chief Lou Jogmen with the Highland Park Police Department told NBC 5 that on the day of the mass shooting in his city, he was actually outside catching up with friends when he heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire erupt through the streets.

“There was no question when you heard it, what it was,” said Chief Jogmen.

Confusion began to ensure, Chief Jogmen explained to reporters, after they were unable to pinpoint where the gunfire was coming from, as the sound kept echoing off nearby buildings.

“And really the only way we could identify where the person was, was that I could see people running away from a certain area,” he explained.

Later, he would assist in the hours-long manhunt that tasked several police forces throughout the region to spread out across the city to find suspected shooter Robert Crimo.

“We didn’t have a very good description,” he said. “That was concerning. We didn’t have a good trail, and that was very concerning. My overwhelming fear was ‘what if this person wasn’t going to be identified or brought to account?’ That was just unacceptable for us.”

The father of Robert Crimo, the 21-year-old suspected of carrying out the mass shooting in Highland Park on Monday, says that his son discussed Sunday’s shooting at a mall in Copenhagen only hours before his own alleged attack on Independence Day.

The 21-year-old suspected shooter reportedly told his father that the gunman accused of entering a mall in Denmark’s capital and killing three people and injured four was “an idiot”, Robert Crimo Jr told the New York Post in an interview.

“He goes, ‘Yeah, that is an idiot.’ That’s what he said!” Mr Crimo said, recalling the conversation with his son. “People like that [commit mass shootings] to amp up the people that want to ban all guns.”

“I talked to him 13 hours before [Monday’s mass shooting]. That’s why I guess I’m in such shock... Like, did he have a psychiatric break or something?” his father asked, before emphasising that he felt he had no responsibility for what occurred in the Chicago suburb on the holiday Monday.

“He bought everything on his own and they’re registered to him,” the father said as he insisted that he had “zero” involvement in the mass shooting.

“They make me like I groomed him to do all this,” Mr Crimo said of critics. “I’ve been here my whole life, and I’m gonna stay here, hold my head up high, because I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Read the full interview in a report from The Independent below:

High-profile Chicago lawyer Steve Greenberg, whose clients include R Kelly, said the parents of alleged Highland Park shooter Robert Crimo should not be held responsible for their son’s alleged actions on 4 July, where seven people were killed and dozens more injured in a brazen mass shooting.

“This isn’t the parent’s fault. This is the fault of the young man who was allowed by the system that’s out there to buy military-grade assault rifles,” said Mr Greenberg in his first on-camera interview with ABC 7 News on Wednesday night.

Robert and Denise Crimo retained the high-profile lawyer as speculation begins to swirl whether the pair could face their own separate charges, after it was released that the father had reportedly sponsored his then-19-year-old son’s Firearm Owner Identification Card (FOID) back in 2019.

“I don’t know how much worse it could get then you wake up in the morning and a few hours later, you realise that someone that you’ve loved and nurtured all their lives has done such a terrorific act, and done it to people that you love and respect,” Mr Greenberg said. His clients, he added, had friends who had attended the Independence Day parade and even “knew some of the people who, unfortunately, fell victim to senseless violence,” adding that they’ve also “lost a son.”

“Their interest is not in getting their son out of trouble but in helping to further the conversation and the analysis so that maybe this stops happening in our country,” Mr Greenberg said, explaining the parents’ position. “I am certainly not defending what occurred, nor are they. This has everything to do with helping prevent another shooting from another young man.”

Cassie Goldstein, 22, was watching the Independence Day parade with her mother Katherine Goldstein, 64, in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park when the shooting began on Monday.

“I was standing there with my mom and I heard what I thought were firecrackers firing into the street across from me,” Ms Goldstein said as she recalled the moment when she saw her mother being fatally shot.

“And then I looked up and I saw the shooter shooting down at the kids,” she told NBC News. “And I told her that it was a shooter and that she had to run.”

Read the full story from my colleague Namita Singh below:

Democratic Illinois congressman Brad Schneider, who was minutes away from joining the Highland Park parade on Monday with his staff when they were alerted that gunfire had erupted along the route, told CBS News on Wednesday night that banning assault-style weapons “shouldn’t be a partisan issue”.

“These are not weapons that belong in a parade. They are belong in a battlefield and let’s get them off our streets,” the Illinois lawmaker said during an interview on CBS.

During a separate interview with The Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Wednesday, the Democrat shared how the harrowing experiences of the past couple of days has only provided him with a renewed sense of purpose to push for removing assault-style weapons, such as the Smith & Wesson M&P15 semi-automatic rifle that Robert Crimo is alleged to have used during Monday’s brutal attack, off the streets and out of communities.

“The adrenaline is starting to leave. I’ve been running on adrenaline for 48 hours and the emotions are starting to swell up,” he said to the news agency between sobs.

“These are weapons of war intended to kill as many people as efficiently and as quickly as possible,” he said. “They have no business in our communities or on our streets. We also have to address the mental health issues, the societal determinants of health. There are so many things that we need to address. But getting these assault weapons off the street should be first order.”

The Illinois State Police have released a redacted report from September 2019 when officers were called to the Crimo family home for a well-being check after Robert Crimo had threatened to “kill everyone” in the house at the time.

The report outlines how officers responded to a call from a person in the Illinois home after Mr Crimo, then 19, “had stated that he was going to kill everyone”.

“[Redacted] that [redacted] was afraid to go home due to the nature of his threat and [redacted] had a collection of knives in his bedroom,” the report says.

The report then says that Mr Crimo, the son, had admitted to being depressed on the day the officers arrived at the home and had a history of drug use.

Officers say the family then turned over 16 knives that were being stored in a “tin can lunchbox”, which belonged to the suspected shooter’s father, a 12 inch dagger and a “24 inch Samurai type blade” that was being stored in Mr Crimo’s bedroom closet for “safekeeping”.

The report then includes a form that indicates that Mr Crimo was determined to be a person who poses a “clear and present danger”.

A woman — stunned and speechless in the chaos of a July 4 parade massacre — walked up to Greg Ring and handed him a 2-year-old boy, covered in blood.

Mr Ring had fled the scene in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park with his wife and three children to an area behind a popular pancake house.

“We kind of met eyes and didn’t say anything.... I put my arms out, and she gave him to me,” Mr Ring said Thursday, when describing the exchange with the unidentified woman, who then laid down in front of their car in shock.

The boy, later identified as Aiden, pointed in the direction of the parade route, saying “Mommy, Daddy, Mommy, Daddy.”

Mr Ring’s wish to help the boy carried him back to the seen. He tucked the boy’s face in his chest, so he couldn’t see the carnage. But he quickly realised it was too dangerous.

Kevin McCarthy, 37, and Irina McCarthy, 35, the child’s parents, were among the seven people who were killed in the shooting spree. In the midst of Monday’s chaos, their two-year-old son was separated from his parents.

Here, you can read the full story about how the Ring family helped to reunite the now orphaned child with his grandparents.

Ravinia Festival announced Wednesday that the outdoor music venue located about a 10-minute drive from where the deadly shooting unfolded this week in Highland Park, Illinois would post-pone or cancel all concerts that were scheduled for this weekend.

“Ravinia stands in loving support of our Highland Park community. We wish comfort and peace to the victims, their families, and all those affected, and look forward to gathering together again soon,” the festival organisers said in a statement.

Affected shows for this weekend included the likes of Sheryl Crow on Thursday evening and Lyle Lovett and Chris Isaak on Sunday.

“We are hurting w/ the community of #HighlandPark & all the communities suffering from gun violence during this confusing time in our history,” tweeted Ms Crow on Wednesday night, while sharing a picture of the statement from festival organisers. “We feel helpless to know how to help. We encourage everyone to give to those who are in mourning. We plan to reschedule at Ravinia.”

Organisers told concert-goers that tickets for the impacted performances would be refunded by 1 August.