Robert Crimo’s parents insist shooting wasn’t their fault as prosecutor refuses to say if they’ll face charges

‘They make me like I groomed him to do all this,’ said Robert Crimo Jr in an interview this week

In the days since the horrific Highland Park shooting on 4 July, more disturbing details about the alleged shooter Robert Crimo III have been unearthed. One such detail includes an incident where Mr Crimo threatened to “kill everyone” in his family home just months before receiving a gun permit.

Mr Crimo’s parents continue to insist that their son’s alleged actions along that doomed parade route wasn’t their fault.

On Monday, officers from across the Highland Park suburb sprawled out across the city in an hours-long manhunt to find Robert Crimo III. The 21-year-old Illinois-native is accused of killing seven people and injuring dozens more with an AR-15-style rifle he legally obtained, despite the city where he carried out the bloody attack having an ordinance in place since 2013 that banned assault style weapons.

He has since been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder and reportedly confessed to investigators later on Monday evening after he’d been arrested that he was responsible for carrying out the brutal massacre, even identifying himself in some of the surveillance footage obtained from the attack.

Though police initially reported that they’d had no run-ins with the suspected shooter prior to the deadly Independence Day shooting, they later recanted that statement and informed the public that they’d made previously contact with Mr Crimo twice. Both instances occurred in 2019, just months apart, and happened before he was approved for a Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card, a permit that legally allows residents of Illinois to own firearms or ammunition.

Mr Crimo was only able to apply for the FOID card through the sponsorship of his father, Robert Crimo Jr, as he was only 19 at the time.

More troubling than his age, however, was the detail that the then-19-year-old had applied for the permit alongside his father in December 2019, just three months after his son reportedly issued death threats against his entire family, according to a report released by the Illinois State Police.

The report outlines how officers responded to a call from a person in the Illinois home after Mr Crimo “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.

Though some have viewed this 2019 incident as a warning sign of the young man’s potentially dangerous behaviour, Robert Crimo Jr has chalked it all up to a misunderstanding, saying that the police report has been “taken out of context”.

Robert Crimo Jr, the father of Highland Park suspect Robert, ran for Mayor of Highland Park in 2019 (Twitter/Robert Crimo Jr)

“Making threats to the family … I think [that was] taken out of context,” the elder Crimo said of the 2019 incident. “It’s like just a child’s outburst, whatever he was upset about, and I think his sister called the police -- I wasn’t living there.”

But despite being the co-signer on his son’s first gun permit and being noted as a witness in the Highland Park police report that determined Mr Crimo to be a “clear and present danger”, the father has maintained that he has “zero” involvement in the mass shooting that ripped through his community of Highland Park on Monday.

“They make me like I groomed him to do all this,” Robert Crimo Jr said of critics during an interview with New York Post this week.

In January 2020, when Mr Crimo’s FOID card had been approved after undergoing multiple background checks, he went on to purchase four guns, which authorities listed as the rifle allegedly used in the 4 July mass shooting, a Kel-Tec SUB200, a Remington 700 and a shotgun. On his 21st birthday in 2021, Mr Crimo purchased a Glock43X.

During a separate interview with ABC News, the father washed his hands of responsibility for his son’s actions by first pointing out that, though he signed the consent form to allow him to “go through the process that the Illinois State Police have in place for an individual to obtain a FOID card,” he wasn’t the authority on whether to give him that permit.

“They do background checks. Whatever that entails, I’m not exactly sure. And either you’re approved or denied, and he was approved,” he said. The most recent FOID card registered under Mr Crimo’s name was renewed without his father’s sponsorship in 2021.

Denise Crimo, mother of Highland Park suspect Robert Crimo, and her husband Bob Sr have retained Chicago attorney Steve Greenberg (Supplied)

On Wednesday, Illinois State Police announced that there will be a criminal investigation opened up to probe the father’s culpability over his sponsorship of his son’s application for a FOID card in 2019.

Throughout interviews released in recent days, Mr Crimo Jr has made a point to distance himself from his son’s gun ownership by emphasising that all of the guns he purchased were done so with his own funds and under his own registration.

“Had I purchased guns throughout the years and given them to him in my name, that’s a different story. But he went through that whole process himself,” he told ABC News, adding that he isn’t too fearful of facing any legal repercussions for signing the consent form.

That confidence may in part stem from the fact that Mr Crimo Jr and his wife, Denise, have retained high-profile attorney Steve Greenberg, whose previous clients include R Kelly, to represent them in any litigation going forward.

Attorney Steve Greenberg, who is representing the parents of alleged Highland Park shooter Robert Crimo, says ‘this isn’t the parent’s fault’ in his first on-camera interview with the press since taking on the Crimo’s case (ABC 7/video screengrab)

“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, insisting that neither mother or father of the accused shooter be held responsible for his actions.

“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, reflecting that both his clients knew people who had attended that Independence Day parade and even “knew some of the people who, unfortunately, fell victim to senseless violence”.

They’ve also “lost a son,” the attorney added, a perspective that wasn’t wholly shared by the accused gunman’s father who revealed to the New York Post that while he would be attending his son’s hearings, he hoped to see him receive a “long sentence”.

“That’s life. You know you have consequences for actions. He made a choice. He didn’t have to do that. I think there’s mental illness there, obviously... I didn’t see a lot of it.”