Robert Crimo III, the admitted shooter in the Highland Park July 4 parade massacre, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Thursday, as a courtroom packed with survivors of the mass shooting looked on.
Judge Victoria Rossetti ruled Crimo would serve seven life sentences, one after another.
But as she read the sentences for each of the 48 counts of attempted murder, she abruptly said court was in recess and left the room.
Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart could be heard telling survivors in the gallery that Crimo had requested to come up during the hearing. Rinehart said it was an unprecedented situation and that he would argue against his being allowed to speak.
Crimo had declined to attend the first day of sentencing on Wednesday, when more than a dozen survivors spoke about their trauma. Crimo on Thursday also declined through his lawyers earlier to speak or give a written statement during sentencing.
Earlier, Rossetti told the courtroom that she had no idea what Crimo’s motive for the shooting could have been.
“To right some wrong, or just because?” Rossetti said.
“But his actions tell this court that he was just a coward, hiding behind a skirt, makeup and an assault weapon that he used to terrorize a community,” Rossetti said. “His callous statement of ‘Breaking a few eggs to make an omelet’ couldn’t be further from the truth. What I’ve heard from the last two days... the community, the people and victims and loved ones are stronger than they’ve ever been and are not broken.”
Rossetti acknowledged that “so many more [people] in the community” were victims of this attack beyond the 55 people shot, seven of whom died.
The attack
In his police interview shown in court Wednesday, Crimo said he planned the attack for years, starting in 2017 or 2018, and even wanted to carry it out on July 4, 2020, but the parade was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Authorities said he disguised himself when he allegedly fired more than 80 rounds from an assault rifle overlooking Central Avenue and Second Street at 10:14 a.m. that morning.
Crimo initially fled in his mother’s car. He headed toward Madison, Wisconsin, where authorities said he considered a second attack before turning back. He was arrested near Lake Forest later that day.
Crimo was indicted on 117 felony counts in his August 2022 arraignment. Twenty-one of the counts were for the murders of seven victims — three counts for each of them.
As the case slowly made its way through the Lake County court system, Crimo briefly dropped his attorneys to represent himself, moving up the trial date to early 2024. Crimo changed his mind weeks later, bringing his attorneys back on the case and pushing the trial date to February 2025.
Jury selection began in late February and attorneys chose 12 jurors and six alternates for the trial. On the day the trial was set to begin, Crimo suddenly pleaded guilty to all the charges against him: 21 counts of murder — one for each of the seven people killed — and 48 counts of attempted murder.
Killed in the massacre were Irina and Kevin McCarthy, Jacki Sundheim, Katherine Goldstein, Eduardo Uvaldo, Nicolas Toledo and Stephen Straus.
The shooting’s impact
The massacre led to a statewide assault weapons ban that survived challenges at the Illinois and U.S. Supreme Courts.
Advocates invoked the shooting in renewed calls for a national assault weapons ban. Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering, who helped implement an assault weapons ban in the north suburb in 2013, traveled to Washington, D.C., after the attack with other officials to push for a national ban.
The shooting also highlighted the shortcomings of the state’s red flag laws meant to prohibit the sale of firearms to certain people. Crimo was able to buy the assault weapons used in the attack despite two police reports that indicated he made suicidal statements and threatened to harm his family. That didn’t trigger the state’s red flag law because the family denied the threats and there was no domestic violence order or court order restraining him from having a gun.
After the shooting, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly implemented an emergency rule that allowed the state police to consider a wider range of information to flag someone as a “clear and present danger.”
The shooting also led to a groundbreaking prosecution of Crimo’s father for helping his son obtain the weapons used in the attack. His father, Robert Crimo Jr., signed his son’s gun ownership application in 2019 because his son was too young to get one himself. Lake County prosecutors later charged Crimo Jr. with reckless conduct because they alleged he was aware of his son’s past suicidal and homicidal statements.
Crimo Jr. was about to stand trial late last year when he accepted a last-minute deal, pleading guilty to misdemeanor counts and accepting a two-month sentence. Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said the guilty plea would serve as a “beacon” for prosecutors across the country to hold parents accountable for the actions of their children.
