The father of the man accused of killing seven people at a Fourth of July parade is adamant that he’s not culpable for his son, despite helping him buy a legal firearm. Robert Crimo Jr., the father of Robert Crimo III,, spoke to several media outlets about his son yesterday and addressed the fact that he sponsored his son's 2019 application for a firearm owner identification card. The younger Crimo was under 21 when he purchased the weapon that prosecutors say he confessed to using to open fire on the crowd in Highland Park, Illinois. He would not have been able to purchase it without his father sponsoring the gun permit. His father helped with the permit despite the family calling the police on his son, who allegedly threatened to “kill everyone” in his home, not long before. “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,” he told the outlet. Police confiscated 16 knives, a dagger, and a sword upon arriving, but Crimo Jr. described the weapons as something his son collected like coins or stamps. His son was not charged. The father said he thinks of the victims “all the time” and even knew some of the injured personally. He said he had “no inkling” of his son’s alleged plans and hasn’t any idea about the motive but plans to ask him about it when he sees him. The alleged gunman confessed on Wednesday to shooting over 70 rounds into a crowd of people enjoying a Fourth of July parade in the affluent Chicago-area suburb from a rooftop, prosecutors said. Crimo Jr. said that he hopes his son gets “a long sentence.” "That's life,” he told the New York Post. “You know you have consequences for actions. He made a choice. He didn't have to do that."Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.
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“Do I regret that? No, not three years ago—signing a consent form to go through the process … that’s all it was,” he told ABC News. “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.”Police have said they will investigate Crimo Jr. for any sort of culpability. If criminal charges aren’t filed there is also the possibility of a civil suit being filed. “There’s probably going to be civil litigation. There is ongoing criminal prosecution and criminal investigation,” Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly told reporters on Wednesday. “Issues of culpability, liability, who may have responsibility in certain circumstances, are all part and parcel of that process."Crimo Jr., who ran for mayor of Highland Park in 2019, discounted the police report that his son had threatened to “kill everyone” in his family shortly before he aided his son in getting weapons. He described the situation as something “taken out of context.”Do you have information about the Highland Park shooter? Please contact Mack Lamoureux at mack.lamoureux@vice.com or David Gilbert at david.gilbert@vice.com or DM on twitter and ask for a Signal number.
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