Tuesday 5 July 2022 06:06 PM Highland Park shooter dressed as a woman and fled with the crowd trends now

Highland Park gunman Robert 'Bobby' Crimo dressed up as a woman to carry out yesterday's attack and was able to flee in the crowd because of the disguise, cops revealed on Tuesday. 

Crimo, 21, has not yet been charged for the massacre but he remains in custody and is speaking with the authorities. 

Police on Tuesday revealed that he legally owned multiple weapons including two rifles - one that was used in the attack and another that was found in his vehicle when he was arrested at 6.30pm last night. Crimo's motive remains unclear, but police say he had been plotting the attack for weeks. 

On Tuesday, it was revealed; 

Crimo legally purchased the semi-automatic weapon used in the attack along with one other rifle and more, unspecified weapons, at a local store He fired 70 rounds from the roof of a local store before ditching the weapon and running into the crowd himself He walked to his mother's house then asked her for her car, without telling her what he'd just done  The woman gave him her vehicle, which he used to flee the area and drive eight miles north before being arrested Investigators are still interviewing Crimo but they have not been able to determine his motive 

He legally purchased the two rifles along with other guns in the local area - despite a ban on assault rifles in Highland Park, buying them at multiple locations.

On Monday, after the attack, he fled among frightened paradegoers, pretending to be one of the victims, and went to his mother's house. 

It's unclear if he told her what he had done or if she is being treated as a suspect, but he took her car.  

It comes as questions over the young gunman's motive, lifestyle and his obsession with the numbers 47 arise. 

Crimo had a 47 tattoo on his cheek and the numbers are emblazoned on the side of a car at his home. The vehicle was left abandoned in the front yard on Tuesday after the home was raided by FBI agents. Crimo also posted the number all over his social media accounts, where he also shared ominous rap videos that glamorized school shootings. 

It's unclear what the significance is; 47 is the date of July 4th in reverse. The next President will also be the 47th. Crimo is a Trump fan and previously attended his rallies. 

His parents, including his local politician father, has not yet addressed his role in the massacre but his uncle said he was a 'quiet kid' who kept largely to himself. 

Paul Crimo, his uncle, has since told how he was behaving normally on Sunday night. He claims he showed 'no signs of violence' - despite YouTube rap videos in which he glamorized school shootings. The shooter's motive for yesterday's attack remains unknown. 

'I'm heartbroken. I’m so heartbroken. There were no signs that I saw that would make him do this. He’s a quiet kid. He’s usually on his own. He’s a lonely, quiet person. He keeps everything to himself,' Paul Crimo, his uncle, told CNN. 

'Everything was as normal,' he said, adding that he was sitting on a recliner in his home the night before the shooting, looking at his computer. We are good people here, and to have this is devastating. I’m so heartbroken for all the families who lost their lives.' 

Crimo's parents have not yet addressed the attack. His father Bob Sr. ran unsuccessfully for mayor against Nancy Rotering.

On Tuesday morning, Rotering confirmed that Crimo 'legally obtained' his weapon. She said she taught him when he was a cub scout, and that he was a normal 'little boy'. Police are yet to confirm what type of weapon he used, but witnesses and videos suggest it was a high-powered rifle. 

'It's one of those situations where you stand back and ask, what happened? How did somebody become this angry, this hateful, to then take it out on innocent people who were just literally having a family day out.? 

'He was just a little boy,' she said. 

Rotering also called for greater gun reform and said that while the gunman 'clearly had a mental breakdown', the issue is not with mental health but with guns being legal.

'I don't know where it came from but I do know it was legally obtained. At some point this nation needs to have a conversation about these weekly events involving the murder of dozens of people with legally obtained guns. If that's what our laws stand for, we need to re-examine the laws. Our values are askew. Yesterday we came together to celebrate independence and freedom after two years of not having a parade.

'We were ready to come together and celebrate our nation and as a result, because of this gun culture, our nation turned its back on us. We have to have a very strong conversation with ourselves. I don't know how many more of these incidents need to occur, we've been talking about this literally for decades at this point.

'It's one of those things where you ask yourself, if this reflects the values of who we are then what does this say about us as a nation?

'Someone clearly had a mental breakdown but I don’t want to ascribe it to mental health. I want to talk about the fact that there are weapons of war on our streets that people can legally obtain and take out dozens of people. Our community is never going to recover from this wound. This is an absolutely devastating blow to all of us.

'Why do we as a nation allow this to happen with such regularity? I can’t tell you how many mayors I heard from yesterday… it was like “here we are again”. I never thought I would be one of “those mayors”, well none of us do.

'This is unbelievable to me that this is an acceptable part of who we are as a nation,' she fumed during an appearance on TODAY.  

Crimo also goes by Awake the Rapper, has more than 16,000 listeners per month on Spotify. 

Music videos posted by Crimo online last fall include a drawing of himself shooting people online, and a disturbing clip of himself throwing bullets on the floor of a classroom while wearing armor in what appears to be a joke about school shootings.

Crimo also had a Discord server where he would chat with friends and fans, and his most recent post was a picture of Budd Dwyer, the Pennsylvania state treasurer who killed himself on live TV in the 1980s, which he captioned: 'I wish politicians still gave speeches like this.'

He also made references to suicide and frequently posted on a message board discussing graphic depictions of murder and death, including a recent video he shared of a beheading.

Among those killed was synagogue teacher Jacki Sundheim, a married mother, and grandfather Nicolas Toledo, 78. Four others have not yet been named. 

Another 25 people aged between eight and 85 suffered gunshot wounds. Six people remain in hospital. 

The US has now seen 309 mass shootings so far this year in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, were shot or killed. 

Eleven alone took place over the holiday weekend.

President Joe Biden said he and his wife Jill were 'shocked by the senseless gun violence that has yet again brought grief to an American community on this Independence Day', and vowed to continue the fight against the shooting 'epidemic'. Kamala Harris is expected to visit Chicago today but it is not known if she will meet victims.

Crimo was arrested after an hours long manhunt that involved local and federal authorities. It has now emerged his father Bob Sr, 58, is a local deli owner who once ran for mayor, while his mom Denise Pesina, 48, was once arrested on suspicion of domestic battery.

She appears to have become a Mormon and is also into alternative therapies, according to her Facebook page. 

Crimo has two siblings, including a 27 year-old sister called Lynette Pesina, with the family residing in a comfortable $425,000 home in Highwood, close to the scene of the shooting. 

In 2020, Crimo was pictured attending a Donald Trump rally while dressed as Where's Waldo. 

Another picture has emerged showing the suspect wrapped in a Donald Trump flag. 

At one of the rallies that Crimo was pictured at in Northbrook, Illinois, the Chicago Tribune described it as 'tense ' but said that there was no arrests made as counter-protesters showed up at the event. The ex-president was not present at that rally.

The suspect's IMDb page describes him as being the middle child of three who grew up in an Italian-American family in Highland Park, Illinois. 

The suspect's ties to the community go back as far as his grandfather, Robert Crimo, who was born in Highland Park in 1929. Robert Crimo died in 2018. 

His obituary names the suspect's parents as Bob Jr. and Denise. Most of the family mentioned in the tribute live in the Highland Park-area. 

The family lives along Pleasant Avenue in Highwood, just north of Highland Park. 

Their home is located across the street from Oak Terrace Elementary School.   

In April 2019, Crimo's father ran for mayor in Highland Park. 

It does not appear that his campaign was backed by a political party. His slogan was a: 'A Person for the People.'

Bob Crimo was defeated by the town's current mayor, Nancy Rotering, a liberal, who ran her campaign partly on a platform about gun control.  

In a pre-election profile, Bob Crimo said that he was the owner of two restaurants in the area, White Hen in Ravinia and Bob's Pantry & Deli in Braeside, Illinois. 

He wrote in the profile: 'I'm running as mayor as a person for the people in our community.'

He continued: 'It's my way of giving back to the community who have been so supportive of me over the years. I live local and I will stay local.' 

In a 2018 feature with the Chicago Tribune, Bob Crimo was pictured with Denise Pesina. 

He describes his restaurant as a 'family-run and family-orientated store.' 

In February 2015, Pesina was arrested in Highland Park on charges of domestic battery while driving, reported Patch.com at the time. 

Further details on the outcome of that case have not been shared. 

Following his defeat, Bob Crimo wrote on Facebook: 'This has been a great experience. I cannot thank my supporters enough. 

'Although the polls weren't in my favor, I will continue to do my best to further the improvement of Highland Park for my fellow neighbors. Thank you all so much again.'

While on his Twitter page, Bob Crimo follows one account, an archived account of ex-President Donald Trump's tweets. 

On May 27, three days after 19 children and two teachers were slaughtered at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Bob Crimo liked a tweet that read: 'Protect the Second Amendment like your life depends on it.' 

The suspect's mother, Denise Pesina, is a healer with a business named Trilogy Energy Systems. 

She regularly posts revealing photos of herself on her Facebook, often while posing with her sphinx cat Sanjay. 

According to the company's mission statement: 'Trilogy Energy Systems is committed to the wellbeing of ALL energy systems. 

'A FULL SPECTRUM HEALING cooperative. One person has the ability to influence innumerous lives.'

The profile on that page says that Pesina studied at Traditional Chinese Medicine at Shanghai University and at the The Ayurvedic Institute, a New Mexico-based school that

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