Illinois man accused of facing trial in Highland Park shooting three years after attack
- Robert Crimo III will face trial Monday, carrying out a mass shooting at the 2022 Independence Day parade in Illinois Highland Park.
- Crimo faces 21 counts of first-degree murder, three counts of each person being killed and 48 counts of attempted murder.
- Police said Crimo admitted to the shooting during a video interrogation, but the 24-year-old has since pleaded not guilty.
A suburban Chicago man is accused of conducting a mass shooting in the 2022 Independence Day parade, killing seven people and injuring dozens of people, which will begin Monday.
Robert Crimo III faces 21 counts of first-degree murder, each person was killed three counts and 48 counts of attempted murder. Prosecutors discarded less serious 48 serious batteries before last week’s jury selection.
The road to trial is bumpy, partly due to Crimo’s unpredictability, including his rejection of a plea agreement that even surprised his attorneys. He occasionally appeared in court and sometimes refused to leave the prison cell due to last week’s interrogation of potential jurors.
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Authorities accused Crimo of perching on the roof and gathering into the crowd at the annual parade at Downtown Highland Park, 30 miles north of Chicago.
Prosecutors submitted thousands of pages of evidence, as well as the time of the video interrogation, and police said Crimo admitted to the shooting. But the 24-year-old has since pleaded not guilty.
His defense attorney declined to comment before the trial, which is expected to last for a month.
Robert E. Crimo III watched the jury selection process on February 24, 2025, at the first day of trial at Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan, Illinois. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Yes, pool, file)
His father, Robert Crimo Jr., pleaded guilty to seven misdemeanor counts of reckless conduct in 2023 and was imprisoned for less than two months.
He attended his son’s hearings and sometimes made eye contact with him during court. He refused to discuss the case in detail before the trial.
“As a parent, I love my son very much,” he said. “And Bobby likes this country more than anyone else.”
Prosecutors plan to call several law enforcement officers and survivors of the shooting to testify. They will also show the police a video of Crimeo’s statement. Some videos have been shown in court when prosecutors tried to throw it away.
Crimeo’s behavior was unstable, resulting in court delays.
He fired the public defenders and said he would represent himself, then suddenly turned himself around. In June 2024, he arrived in court in a wheelchair and rejected the deal when he was expected to accept a plea agreement and give the victim and relative a public address.
Residents of the wealthy Heights Park community, with about 30,000 people along Lake Michigan, were deeply mourned. Some potential jurors were forgiven for their connection to the case.
City leaders canceled their usual parades in 2023 and chose “community walk.” Last year, the parade resumed on another route and provided memorials for victims.
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“Our community is once again reminding of the great pain and trauma caused by the shooting in the Highland Park,” Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering said in a statement before the jury selection. “We are in our hearts with the victims, their families and all those who have changed forever.”
The victims killed in the shooting include Katherine Goldstein, 64, Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63, Stephen Straus, 88, Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78, Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, and married Kevin McCarthy, 37, and Irina McCarthy, 35.
Survivors and their families filed several lawsuits, including against manufacturers of semi-automatic rifles used in the shooting, and authorities targeting them for blaming them for negligence.
