A man who was arrested in connection with an attack that killed six people at a July Fourth party near Chicago seems to be a want tobe rapper who posted videos of disturbing acts of violence.
Who is Robert Crimo?
At first, authorities said Crimo was 22, but an FBI bulletin and Crimo's social media said he was only 21. The 21-year-old man is the son of Bob Crimo, who is the president of Bob's Pantry & Deli in the same part of Highland Park. A Facebook post suggests that Crimo's father also ran for president in 2020.
Monday evening, police cars surrounded a two-story house that was listed as Crimo's address. Outside, there were several police cars and at least one armored car. Journalists were kept far away from the area. Neighbors said that Crimo's father, Bob Crimo, owned Bob's Pantry & Deli, which is close by.
Officials say they didn't want to call Crimo a suspect, so they called him a "person of interest" instead. They also said that the FBI was offering a reward for information.
He is an aspiring rapper
Crimo is arapper from Chicago named "Awake the Rapper" fits the description given by police, including having tattoos on his face.
An IMDb page under Crimo’s name identifies him as a “rapper, singer, songwriter, actor and director” from the Chicago area. The page boasts one of his songs released in 2018 amassed “millions of plays so far across online streaming platforms.”
“The hip hop phenom is mostly known for his hit song ‘On My Mind’ which was released on Oct. 8, 2018. The track has amassed millions of plays so far across online streaming platforms,” boasts one user-written bio on the page.
Crimo began uploading music when he was 11, according to the IMDb page. The page claims his net worth is $100,000.
“The six foot Hip hop phenom Awake The Rapper was born Robert Eugene Crimo III on September 20, 2000 in Chicago, Il,” according to the page. “He’s the middle child of three and of Italian descent.”
Crimo went by the name "Awake the Rapper," and the messages he sent were a little scary, since they showed a stick figure covered in tactical gear being shot at by police, as shown in the video below.
In video, a cartoon character with a gun lay facedown in a pool of blood, surrounded by police officers. This same artist seemed to have put a picture of a newspaper clipping about the death of Lee Harvey Oswald, who shot and killed President John F. Kennedy from a high place with a rifle, on the wall of his bedroom.
Lyrics to his music have an aggressive and suggestive connotation
"Like a sleepwalker, I am unable to stop and think," he raps. "My actions will be valiant and my thought is unnecessary. I know what I have to do, I know what's in it, not only for me but for everyone else."
He elaborates that there are no consequences to his actions
"There is no past or future, just the now," he continues "It is more abstract than I can ever imagine. I can feel the atmosphere pushing me in. It's unstoppable, like a wave pulling me under, I can't breathe without it."
He insisted he needed to leave
"I need to leave now, I need to just do it. It is my destiny, everything has led up to this," the shooter adds. "Nothing can stop me, not even myself. Is there such thing as free will, or has this been planned out, like a cosmic recipe?"
At this time he is being interrogated by the Highland Park PD and investigators are at the precinct, there is still more to be known.
Violent videos may be connected to man arrested in parade shooting
In the hours after the shooting, YouTube took down violent videos that seemed to be about Crimo. The account that posted the videos was banned, but YouTube didn't respond right away to a request for comment from USAGAG.
In the video for the song "Out of This World" by Awake the Rapper, drawings show a gunman wearing a tactical vest and carrying a semi-automatic rifle, with dead bodies all around him. As he shoots, a figure without a face raises its hands to give up. The gunman is wearing a helmet that looks like a Go-Pro camera is attached to it. As the voice raps, images of other characters who look like they are in a lot of pain appear. Sometimes it feels like I'm living a dream."
In another video posted by the same account, the images change quickly between scrawled drawings of characters with no faces and clips of a young man wearing a baseball cap sitting on a bed. The pictures then change to show a person holding a semi-automatic rifle. Another character without a face seems to have blood coming out of its chest.
The Daily Mail said that the most-watched video on his YouTube channel is a music video for "On My Mind" that shows him in a classroom.
Crimo can be seen reaching into a backpack in the video before the screen goes black. The UK news outlet said that when the music comes back, it is full of crazy laughter, fast-paced piano music, and drumbeats, and Crimo is wearing a helmet and a bulletproof vest.
The video then shows Crimo smiling while the classroom is trashed, the outlet said.
His Spotify page says that he made three albums: one in 2017, one in 2018, and one last year. The page says that on average, 16,466 people listen to him every month.
In 2019, his father, who also had the name Robert Crimo, ran for mayor of Highland Park. WGN 9 said that in 2019, he lost to Nancy Rotering, who is now the mayor of Highland Park. He hung up on the news station when they called him for a comment.
A report from NBC News says that Crimo also wrote at least two posts about former President Donald Trump.
The outlet says that he was seen with a Trump flag draped over him in a tweet from June 27, 2021. The post only had the word "spam" in the title.
Another video that is said to be on his YouTube page seems to show Crimo and other people cheering for Trump's motorcade outside of an airport on January 2, 2021. Later, he turned the phone around so that his face would be visible at the end of the video.
The young man with the ballcap then shows up in a new outfit, but it looks like it's the same person. He is in a classroom with blackboards on the walls, a row of lockers, and a TV mounted high above the doorway. A pole has an American flag on it, and the man is wearing a tactical vest and a helmet.
The quick-cut video clips are repeated, but the classroom scenes are shown from different points of view. In one shot, the room is seen from his point of view. It is only wide enough to fit two sets of school desks next to each other in three rows, for a total of six desks. It's not clear if the setting is a real classroom or a set that has been set up very well.
The figure with the helmet is next to the lockers. Then he comes back without his tactical gear and just wearing the ballcap. Next, he gets back into his tactical gear and kneels over a stack of papers on the floor, covering his eyes with his hands. In another shot, the figure with the helmet is sitting at one of the desks and working on a piece of notebook paper. On the back of his neck, you can see a tattoo that looks like a snake.
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Authorities looked for Robert "Bobby" E. Crimo III for hours on Monday. They caught him after a short chase about five miles from where the shooting happened, just before 7 p.m. local time. No charges were said to be coming.
A North Chicago police officer saw Crimo and chased him for a short time in nearby Lake Forest. "The subject was taken into custody without incident," Highland Park police Chief Lou Jogmen said. "This doesn't necessarily mean that the case is over, but the fact that we have a person of interest is encouraging."
TV news footage showed a silver Honda Fit with open doors, which the police said Crimo was driving. The car was stopped at an intersection. Police had said that Crimo was probably dangerous and armed.
Video of Robert Crimo III arrest. "Do me a favor, get on your knees, get on your knees lay down flat on your stomach." https://t.co/mrVLkv6AEg pic.twitter.com/VtWBXFZbWN
— John Dodge (@dodgerman) July 5, 2022
Christopher Covelli, a spokesman for the Lake County Major Crime Task Force, said that Crimo had been arrested because "this person is thought to be responsible for what happened." Covelli said that a "significant amount of digital evidence" helped lead investigators to Crimo.
