The accused gunman’s father faces trial in Illinois parade shooting

In a case that could broaden the legal interpretation of who bears responsibility for a mass shooting, the father of the man accused of killing seven people during a Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb will go on trial Monday. for reckless behavior.

Prosecutors in Illinois have charged Robert Crimo Jr., the father of accused gunman Robert Crimo III, with seven felonies for helping his son obtain a permit to purchase firearms before the shooting.

The older Mr. Crimo, prosecutors said, ignored clear signs that his son was capable of violence: In 2019, months before the gun permit was obtained, a family member contacted authorities and reported that the younger Mr. Crimo had threatened to ‘kill’. everyone.” Police officers removed sixteen knives, a dagger and a sword from the house, but decided there was no probable cause to arrest him at that time.

Robert Crimo III later purchased several weapons, including a high-powered rifle. On July 4, 2022, he climbed onto the roof of a building in downtown Highland Park, Illinois, and opened fire on the parade crowd, killing seven people and wounding many others, authorities said. He was 21 at the time and is still in jail awaiting a trial date.

The Trial of Robert Crimo Jr. will take place at the Lake County Courthouse in suburban Chicago. He opted for a bench trial, meaning no jury will hear the case.

The process is expected to take several days.

Who is Robert Crimo Jr.?

Mr. Crimo, who appeared in court during the hearings, was a well-known figure in Highland Park even before the shooting as the owner of a deli bearing his name and as a former mayoral candidate in the city.

He has denied any wrongdoing in connection with the parade attack and said he had no signs his son intended to commit any violence.

“I had no inkling, no warning, that this would happen,” he said said last year. “I’m just shocked.”

In a statement, George M. Gomez, a lawyer for the elder Mr. Crimo, called the charges against his client “baseless and unprecedented.”

His son, known as Bobby, has pleaded not guilty to 117 criminal charges, including 21 counts of first-degree murder.

What makes Illinois’ gun laws different?

Illinois has some of the strictest gun restrictions in the country. It requires most firearm owners to obtain a firearms permit, called a firearm owner identification card, issued by the Illinois State Police.

In sponsoring his son’s FOID card, prosecutors said, Mr. Crimo acted recklessly.

“People bear responsibility when they recklessly endanger others,” Eric Rinehart, Lake County’s top prosecutor, said last year when he announced the charges, each of which carries a prison sentence of up to three years.

“The government typically won’t know any more than a parent about what’s going on,” Mr. Rinehart said, “with an 18-, 19- or 20-year-old.”

How unusual are the charges against the father in this case?

Eric A. Johnson, professor law student at the University of Illinois, said that while charges of reckless conduct are routine, these circumstances are unusual.

“It’s a relatively new – although I think defensible – theory of persecution,” Mr Johnson said.

While prosecutors aren’t changing the law or what it means to act recklessly, they are identifying new situations where they could apply it, he said.

The approach reflects a strategy adopted in cases following at least two other mass shootings in recent years. When a 15-year-old in Michigan was accused of slaughtering four classmates in 2021, his parents were charged with involuntary manslaughter; they have pleaded not guilty and will stand trial in January. And after a 29-year-old man went on a killing spree at a Waffle House in Nashville in 2018, the man’s father, an Illinois resident, was convicted of illegally making available the weapon used in the restaurant.