Red flags and firearms checks: How the Highland Park suspect slipped through the cracks

Trevor Hughes and Chris Kenning, USA TODAY
·9 min read
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The July Fourth shooting suspect's legal firearms purchases after repeated police background checks exposed deep flaws in the piecemeal state and federal systems intended to stop mass shooters.

Robert Crimo, 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. He legally purchased at least five guns, authorities said, including the Smith & Wesson M&P15 semi-automatic 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 – police, state or federal regulators, or his parents, friends and online followers – prevented him from amassing an arsenal of weapons and hundreds of bullets.

Multiple warning signs apparently ignored

Police and prosecutors say police had contact with Crimo twice in 2019 when he was a teen.

In April, someone reported to police that the 18-year-old attempted suicide a week earlier, and police said family members reassured them the matter was being handled by mental health professionals. .

In September, a family member reported Crimo threatened “to kill everyone” and had a collection of knives.

Investigators temporarily confiscated knives, a dagger and a sword from his home, police said, and though Crimo was not arrested, the Illinois State Police were formally notified of the incident via a "Clear and Present Danger request."

In a statement, the Illinois State Police 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 under 21, according to state police.

“There was insufficient basis to establish a clear and present danger and deny the application,” according to the Illinois State Police, the agency that oversees the license process.

After getting his license in January 2020, Crimo bought at least five guns in four transactions, passing federal background checks each time. Although Highland Park banned semi-automatic weapons and large-capacity magazines in 2013, Crimo lived in nearby Highwood, which permits them, at the time of his purchases.

Crimo posted videos featuring guns, school shootings and nihilistic themes about suicide and death. Hosting sites have taken down most of those videos, but they were publicly available for years.

PARADE SUSPECT'S MOTIVE: Police say he bought guns legally, disguised himself to escape parade. But motive remains a mystery.

As with numerous other accused mass shooters, no one seems to have reported concerns about the 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, 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, then illegally import it home. He could have 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 laws, a position echoed, in part, by Lake County State's Attorney Eric Rinehart, who is prosecuting Crimo.

“He could have just driven to Indiana and purchased a gun without a background check” from an unlicensed seller, Rinehart said of the case, which highlights “the complexity of gun violence in this country and why we have to do more for really comprehensive solutions.”

Suspect had a state gun license

Although Illinois allows adults to buy the kind of rifle 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 an Illinois Auditor General report in 2021. From January through April 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?" attorney Steve Greenberg wrote. "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."

Illinois 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 him to relinquish his state firearms license, 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.

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.

SURVIVORS: Four members of one family were shot during the Highland Park shooting. They all survived.

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 “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.

That law is rarely used in Illinois – 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.

He said efforts to strengthen them would still leave Illinois surrounded by states with far more lax gun laws.

They came for the American dream. On the Fourth of July, they survived an American shooting.

John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest U.S. gun violence prevention organization, told USA TODAY 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.

Colorado's 2-year-old red flag law is working well, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said. 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 a 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 in 2017 during a domestic violence incident by a man who had publicly threatened law enforcement and students at his former university. Pelle and his deputies assisted in the response to last spring's mass murder at a Boulder grocery store where a 21-year-old armed with an AR-15-style pistol killed 10 people.

Pelle said he thinks law enforcement and society in general need to consider ways to limit the access of socially disconnected young men to guns. His support of red flag laws has drawn 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.

New federal gun legislation

Last month, President Joe Biden 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.

  • Encourages schools to more closely screen students for concerns.

Feinblatt, of Everytown, said the new federal law may help address mass shootings because it provides additional scrutiny for young people buying guns.

Rinehart, the state's attorney who charged Crimo with seven counts of first-degree murder, said he believes a federal 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.

A ban in 1994 expired in 2004, and federal lawmakers haven't adopted a broad national policy to address shootings or reinstated the ban.

Biden said last month's legislation is the most sweeping gun control package in three decades, though he acknowledged the law falls short of what he wanted. He said he hopes it 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