HIGHLAND PARK, In poor health. — Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III, the particular person of curiosity recognized by police after Monday’s taking pictures in a Chicago suburb that killed six individuals and wounded 38 others, left a protracted path of tributes to mass shootings and public killings on social media platforms, based on quite a few profiles that seem to belong to him.
Crimo carried out as a rapper who glided by the title “Awake,” whose current music movies included depictions of mass homicide.
Crimo’s most up-to-date video posted to YouTube confirmed him within the aftermath of a faculty taking pictures. It ends with Crimo draping himself in an American flag. One other music video confirmed a cartoon depiction of a person sporting a shirt along with his YouTube channel’s brand on it, holding a protracted gun and being shot by police.
The YouTube account that hosted his movies, which had beforehand been accessible to the general public, was unavailable Monday evening.
Crimo had his personal Discord server, the place followers and individuals who knew him would chat. The group featured a politics board crammed with nihilistic political memes. The latest publish earlier than the taking pictures, which was posted in March, was an image of Budd Dwyer, the Pennsylvania state treasurer who shot and killed himself on stay tv within the late Nineteen Eighties, together with the caption “I want politicians nonetheless gave speeches like this.”
On Discord, followers would share posts that Crimo had fabricated from himself. One obvious selfie Crimo took in March reads: “Cursed picture screenshot and ship to everybody or commit not alive anymore,” a reference to suicide.
After Monday’s taking pictures, 4chan trolls invaded the group, utilizing it as a gathering level to laud the shooter and publish memes in regards to the assault. The Discord channel was shut down round 6 p.m. ET, simply hours after Crimo was named as an individual of curiosity.
Crimo additionally posted regularly to a message board that mentioned graphic depictions of homicide, suicide and loss of life. His most up-to-date publish to that message board got here final week, when he posted a video of a beheading.
Crimo didn’t regularly publish about main political figures on his web sites, besides for 2 posts about former President Donald Trump.
A video posted to Crimo’s YouTube web page on Jan. 2, 2021, seems to indicate Crimo amongst a throng of protesters cheering for Trump’s presidential motorcade exterior an airport. Crimo flips the cellphone’s orientation to disclose his face on the finish of the video.
Crimo can be seen draped in a Trump flag in a June 27, 2021, publish on Twitter. The publish is captioned with solely the phrase “spam.”
Mark Heymann, 22, who stated he went to Highland Park Excessive College with Crimo, stated Crimo was a rapper who launched music after they have been at school collectively.
Heymann stated he doesn’t recall a lot about Crimo.“He all the time appeared a bit of off, however I can’t describe it a lot past that,” he stated.
Crimo’s father, who reportedly owned comfort shops, staged an unsuccessful run for mayor of Highland Park in 2019.
Within the neighborhood, the household have been generally known as quiet individuals who saved to themselves, stated individuals who lived on the block.
Michael Gammel, who lives subsequent door, recalled one dialog by which the elder Crimo alluded to his son having bother at college that the daddy described as “emotional points.”
Gammel and one other neighbor who did not need to be recognized recalled the youthful Crimo driving round on an electrical scooter with loud music taking part in so individuals knew when he got here and went. The final time, Gammel stated, was Monday morning about 10.
Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering instructed NBC’s “TODAY” present Tuesday that she didn’t imagine Crimo was beforehand identified to police till Monday.
She revealed she knew him when he was a toddler when he was within the Cub Scouts, a Boy Scouts of America program for kids in kindergarten to fifth grade.
“I do know him as any individual who was a Cub Scout once I was the Cub Scout chief,” she stated. “It’s a type of issues the place you step again and also you say, ‘What occurred? How did any individual grow to be this offended? This hateful?’ To then take it out on harmless individuals who actually have been having a household day trip.”
When requested what he was like again then, she replied, “He was just a bit boy.”
Dennis Romero, Rima Abdelkader, Sarah Kaufman, Maya Brown and Marlene Lenthang contributed.
