How the Highland Park mass shooting suspect slipped through the cracks to legally buy guns
The July Fourth shooting suspect's legal firearms purchases following repeated police background checks have exposed deep flaws in the piecemeal state and federal systems intended to stop someone like him.
Robert "Bobby" Crimo III, 21, held a valid Illinois Firearm Owner's Identification card at the time of the shooting that killed seven people and injured dozens more in Highland Park, an upscale Chicago suburb. And he legally purchased at least five guns, authorities said, including the Smith & Wesson M&P15 semiautomatic rifle that he's accused of using in the attack.
“Based on what we know, I'd say the system worked as it was designed – it's just not comprehensive,” said Harold Krent, a professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. “Neither the initial licensing system nor the red-flag process is designed for an open-ended inquiry into fitness for operating a firearm.”
In other words, Crimo simply slipped through the wide-open cracks of a system where no single authority – local police, state or federal regulators, or his parents, friends and online followers – prevented him from amassing an arsenal of weapons and hundreds of bullets.
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Multiple warning signs apparently ignored
Police and prosecutors say local police had contact with Crimo twice in 2019, when he was still a teen.
In April, someone reported to police that Crimo, then 18, had attempted suicide a week earlier, and police said family members reassured them the matter was being handled by mental health professionals, according to police. .
And then in September, a family member reported Crimo threatened that he was “going to kill everyone” and had a collection of knives. Crimo's birthday in Sept. 20, and authorities did not specify the date of that report.
Investigators temporarily confiscated knives, a dagger and a sword from his home, police said, and while Crimo was not arrested, the Illinois State Police were formally notified of the incident via a "Clear and Present Danger request."
In a statement, ISP said "no one, including family, was willing to move forward on a complaint nor did they subsequently provide information on threats or mental health that would have allowed law enforcement to take additional action.”
Because Crimo didn't have a firearms license at the time, police said, no formal red flags were implemented and he was allowed to get a firearms license card three months later after his father co-signed the application because he was still under 21, according to state police.
“There was insufficient basis to establish a clear and present danger and deny the application,” said Illinois State Police, which oversees the license process.
After getting his license in January 2020, Crimo then bought at least five guns in four transactions, passing federal background checks each time. And although Highland Park in 2013 banned semiautomatic weapons and large-capacity magazines, Crimo at the time of his purchases lived in nearby Highwood, which permits them.
Crimo, who performs as Awake the Rapper, posted numerous disturbing videos featuring guns, school shootings and nihilistic themes about suicide and death. Those videos have now generally been taken down by the hosting sites but were publicly available for years.
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As with numerous other accused mass shooters, no one seems to have reported concerns about Crimo's videos to authorities or his family, or flagged the violent content to the hosting sites until afterward.
Although Illinois has a special firearms licensing system, surrounding states don’t. In Wisconsin, for instance, anyone with an ID who can pass a federal background check can buy a rifle.
Even if Crimo had been banned from buying a gun by Illinois State Police, he would have been legally able to purchase one across state lines, and then illegally import it home. He could have also just bought a gun from a private seller, avoiding a federal background check.
Christian Heyne, vice president of policy at the gun violence prevention group Brady, said the shooting showed the limits of existing laws, a position echoed in part by the Lake County State's Attorney prosecuting Crimo.
“He could have just driven to Indiana and purchased a gun without a background check” from an unlicensed seller, he said of Crimo and a case that highlights “the complexity of gun violence in this country and why we have to do more for really comprehensive solutions.”
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Suspect had a state gun license
Although Illinois allows adults to buy the kinds of rifle of the type that Crimo is accused of using, the state requires anyone who wants to legally own a firearm or ammunition to get what's known as a Firearm Owner's Identification card, or FOID.
Krent said Illinois licensing regulators focus on whether there has been a felony, whether someone has demonstrated domestic violence or whether an individual has been in a mental health institution – but not instances of suicide attempts or threats against an applicant's family.
Less than 4% of nearly 600,000 applications were denied in 2018 and 2019, according to a 2021 Illinois Auditor General report. From January through April of 2022, the state denied nearly 10%, according to Illinois State Police statistics.
In a series of tweets, a lawyer for Crimo's parents lambasted a system that allowed him to purchase the guns.
"ISP should ask why did THEY approve a FOID card and why do THEY allow the sale of assault weapons?" wrote attorney Steve Greenberg. "The 'system' is trying to make this about parenting. The parents recognize that is a legitimate concern. However it is important to know the Illinois State Police renewed the gun card when their son turned 21, long before this, without any involvement from his father."
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Illinois already knew it had gaps in its licensing system. In 2019, Gary Martin, who killed five people in a shooting rampage in Aurora, Illinois, slipped through a background check process to buy the weapon he used in the attack – even though the law prohibited him as a felon from owning a gun.
When Illinois State Police figured out he had a felony conviction that required he relinquish his state firearms license before the shooting, they gave Martin 48 hours to transfer his firearms to a licensed gun owner or give them up to police. If he saw the letter, he ignored it.
At the time, USA TODAY reported that fewer than half of Illinois gun owners whose licenses are revoked follow through with the requirement to show authorities that they no longer own firearms, according to state police data.
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Red flag laws are growing
In the months before Crimo got his firearm ID, Illinois enacted the Firearms Restraining Order Act, making it one of 19 states with so-called “red flag laws” under which family members or law enforcement can ask a judge to temporarily remove guns from someone who is a potential danger to themselves or others.
But that law is rarely used in Illinois – just 53 times in two years, according to the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority.
“I don't think any agencies fumbled the ball here," Heyne said.
"I do think that family members have a much stronger role to play” in using red flag laws, he said.
At the same time, he said, efforts to strengthen them would still leave Illinois surrounded by states with far more lax gun laws.
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John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest U.S. gun violence prevention organization, told USA TODAY said it should be a "wake-up call" that neither police nor the shooter’s family employed Illinois’ red flag law. He said it points to a need for more training and awareness. Illinois red flag law operates separately from the firearms licensing system.
Police should have used the law after they removed knives from the suspect’s possession, he said.
“It's good to pass a law but it's another thing to use it. And once again, there was a tool. It could have been effective. It wasn't taken out of the toolbox. And the result is tragedy and lives lost,” he said.
In Colorado, the state's 2-year-old red flag law is working well, said Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle. At least 250 times, judges have granted requests to remove firearms from someone's possession.
"In the majority of cases, that likely prevented a suicide or self harm," Pelle said. "They can make a difference one case at time. They may prevent a mass shooting and the thing is we'll never know."
Pelle began championing red flag laws after his son, a sheriff's deputy, was shot and injured during a 2017 domestic violence incident by a man who had publicly threatened law enforcement and students at his former university. Pelle and his deputies also assisted in the response to last spring's mass murder at a Boulder grocery store where a 21-year-old man armed with an AR-15 style pistol killed 10 people.
Pelle said he thinks law enforcement and society in general needs to consider ways to limit the access of socially disconnected young men to guns. His support of red flag laws has drawn substantial criticism from right-wing gun owners, he said, but he argued they could have helped protect his son and the other deputies shot that day.
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New federal gun legislation could help
President Joe Biden last month settled for an incremental approach to gun violence that:
gives grants to states that adopt red flag laws or other similar programs,
provides increased access to juvenile court records during firearms background checks,
toughens rules on who needs to get a federal firearms sales license;
and encourages schools to more closely screen students for potential concerns.
Feinblatt, of Everytown, said the new federal law may help address Highland Park and other recent mass shootings because it provides additional scrutiny for young people buying guns.
Lake County State's Attorney Eric F. Rinehart, who has charged Crimo with seven counts of first-degree murder, said he believes a federal assault-weapons ban would help reduce mass shootings like the one that shattered his hometown.
"Separate from these red flag laws, we should also ban assault weapons in Illinois and beyond," he said.
The 1994 assault-weapons ban is credited by some studies with reducing mass shootings but others suggest it had little effect on overall gun violence because there are so many shootings in the United States.
The ban expired in 2004 and federal lawmakers have proved unwilling to adopt a broad new national policy to address shootings like the one in Illinois, or to reinstate the assault weapons ban. Instead, they've settled for what even Biden acknowledged is lesser legislation.
Still, Biden last month said he's hopeful the most sweeping federal gun-reform legislation passed in three decades will make a difference.
"From Columbine to Sandy Hook, to Charleston, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, El Paso, Atlanta, Buffalo, Uvalde, and for the shootings that happen every day in the streets that are mass shootings – and we don’t even hear about them, the number of people killed every day in the streets – their message to us was: 'Do something,'" Biden said. "God willing, it’s going to save a lot of lives."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Highland Park shooter bought guns despite threats, red flags
