The young man who shot and killed six people in a Chicago suburb on National Day has been arrested. It’s about an unsuccessful rapper whose social media posts reveal fantasies of death and violence.
A few hours after the massacre in Highland Park, the police were able to arrest the alleged perpetrator Robert E. Crimo.
On the morning of July 4th, the American national holiday, a young man shot dead six people and injured more than 30 during a parade in Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago. In the evening he was arrested in nearby Lake Forest. Police spotted him in a car and were able to stop him after a short chase. It is 22-year-old Robert E. Crimo III, who resided in Highland Park.
“Nothing can stop me, not even myself”
Crimo is a locally known rapper who released YouTube videos under the name Awake the Rapper and whose songs were also featured on Spotify but have since been removed. Photos he posted of himself show a young man with a beard and tattoos on his neck and face. He had “Awake” tattooed over his left eyebrow, the number 47 is on his right temple and a Roman five under his right eye.
the amateur videos, which he published on his profile, have an alarming effect in retrospect. One shows him in battle fatigues in a classroom next to an American flag. In another computer-generated video, he holds a rifle while a figure kneels in front of him with his arms raised, apparently begging for mercy. A voice in the background says to dramatic music: «I have to go now, I just have to do it. Everything has led to this moment, nothing can stop me, not even myself.” In another clip he says: “I hate it when others get more attention than I do on the internet.”
References to Lee Harvey Oswald
A video of a beheading was also posted on his blog; a little film from last year shows them Central Avenue in Highland Park, the street where the parade and massacre took place. One post alludes to Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of John F. Kennedy. Often the sign of the far-right Finnish organization Suomen Sisu appears, but it is not clear whether he really sympathized with it.
There’s a photo of him wrapped in a Trump flag and another picture of him apparently attending a Trump rally. But people around him tend to describe him as apolitical; he is said to have hardly been interested in current events, even if he spent a lot of time on the Internet. Unlike other gunmen, such as the Buffalo gunman who killed 10 people, mostly African Americans, in mid-May, no racial or other ideology is known to have prompted his killing.
Closed off, depressed and unemployed
A few years ago, Crimo had apparently made some money from his music, but things haven’t been going well since then. A colleague said he had seemed depressed lately. He is consistently described as a bit “strange”, but apparently no one saw signs of his outbreak of violence.
Paul Crimo, the perpetrator’s uncle, spoke in an interview with the Chicago television station Fox 32. He said Robert had always been a very quiet kid who kept everything to himself. There were hardly any conversations between them, Robert was sitting in front of his computer the whole time. Apparently he, his father and uncle lived at the same address, but Robert Crimo had his own apartment. His father, a deli owner, ran unsuccessfully for Highland Park mayor in 2019. According to his uncle, Robert was unemployed but had previously worked in a bakery.
In short, his profile is in many ways typical of American gunmen: Young, male, white, member of the middle class, grew up in a small-town environment, rather reserved, spends a lot of time on the Internet, feels misjudged or excluded and increasingly develops fantasies of greatness and omnipotence, which he then one day, incomprehensible to those close to him , implemented.
