July 4 Shooting Suspect's Father Tells His Side of the Story: 'I Didn't Do Anything Wrong'
The accused July 4 shooter’s father has come forward to shed some light on his son’s purported crimes.
In an interview with the New York Post, Robert Crimo Jr., father of Robert Crimo III, who has been accused carrying out Monday’s mass shooting at Highland Park, Illinois, insisted that he had done nothing wrong and revealed the shocking conversation he had with his son the night before the shooting.
“They make me like I groomed him to do all this,” Crimo Jr. told the Post, referring to his critics.
“I’ve been here my whole life, and I’m gonna stay here, hold my head up high, because I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Some of these critics are claiming that Crimo Jr., who ran for mayor in Highland Park as a Democrat in 2019, shares some culpability for helping his son purchase firearms.
The alleged shooter’s father hired Steven Greenberg, one of the lawyers who defended R. Kelly in the singer’s federal sex-trafficking case, to defend him against these claims.
It is true that Crimo Jr. helped his son acquire firearms.
According to the Post, Crimo Jr. sponsored his son’s gun license, allowing the accused mass shooter to purchase firearms before the age of 21.
Since the shooting, various stories have broken, outlining the many warning signs in Crimo III’s life — all of which suggested he may be a danger to the public.
In 2019, three months prior to Crimo Jr. sponsoring the application, authorities labeled Crimo III a “clear and present danger” for threatening to kill relatives.
Following this incident, police confiscated “a sword, dagger and 15 knives.”
“You know, I used to collect coins and baseball cards,” Crimo Jr. told the Post when asked about his son’s weapons.
“He bought everything on his own, and they’re registered to him.”
“You know, he drove there, he ordered them, he picked them up, they did his background check on each one.”
The night before the shooting, the two talked about the mass shooting that had occurred in Denmark that day.
According to Crimo Jr., Crimo III called the Denmark shooter an “idiot” and said, “People like that … [commit mass shootings] to amp up the people that want to ban all guns.”
According to the Post, he thought his son would be using the weapons at a shooting range.
Criticism of Crimo Jr. extends beyond his sponsorship of Crimo III’s gun license.
In an interview with Fox News, the alleged shooter’s ex-football coach revealed that Crimo III’s parents were “a problem.”
In his view, the two parents were, at best, indifferent towards their child.
“Every week, the Crimos were the last kids there, and we’d have to call their parents to pick them up,” he said.
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