Social media postings and reports from those that knew him have given insight into the Highland Park shooter Robert “Bobby” Crimo the 22-year-old who killed 7 people at a 4th of July parade in the upmarket suburb of Chicago.
The postings on YouTube, Discord, Instagram, and other social media sites, show someone that was clearly unhinged with dark fantasies. The postings also show an affinity for the far-right, including one in which the perpetrator is wearing a Trump flag as a cape and another which shows him with the symbol of a neo-Nazi Finnish organisation. He went by the name ‘SS’ on Discord, a name taken from the SS Nazi battalion responsible for some of the worst crimes of the Second World War and the Holocaust.
Crimo is also seen to have an affinity with rap music, going by the name Awake the Rapper on social media.
One person that grew up with Crimo, Mark Heymann, 22, told The Daily Beast that he did not know him too well, but that they had been Cub Scouts together.
He said:
“He was a year younger than me. I knew who he was and I knew his name, something off, something wasn’t right about him. I don’t really know who his friends are or if he had any friends. I don’t remember him in any specific friend group in high school, but he was definitely a loner.”
A neighbour also said that Crimo would ride around the neighbourhood on an electric bike listening to heavy metal music, they said:
“The family’s been in the area for a long time. We don’t really know him, but we see him riding around the neighbourhood. We never had any interaction with him, other than we just see him driving around.”
The mayor of Highland Park added:
“And it’s one of those things where you step back and you say, ‘What happened? How did somebody become this angry? This hateful to then take it out on innocent people who, literally, were just having a family day out?”
The mass shooting was just one of a number that occurred on the 4th of July, with the US now experiencing at least one mass shooting a week on average.
[Based on reporting by: The Daily Beast]
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