The father of the Highland Park gunman who killed eight people and left dozens of others injured denied any responsibility for July Fourth massacre.
Speaking to New York Post, Robert Crimo Jr. revealed that his son talked about the Copenhagen mass shooting the night before he carried out the attack.
He said that his son said: “Yeah, that guy is an idiot.”
The father also said that the 21-year-old told him: “People like that… (commit mass shootings) to amp the people that want to ban all guns.”
But the next day, Robert ‘Bobby’ Crimo III shot and killed multiple people in Highland Park, Illinois.
His shocked dad told the Post: “I talked to him 13 hours before. That’s why I guess I’m in such shock. Like, did he have a psychiatric break or something?”
On Tuesday, it emerged that Crimo helped his son obtain guns only a few months after his collection of knives got confiscated.
In September 2019, police received a ‘clear and present danger’ report after Crimo threatened to take the lives of his family.
Illinois State Police confiscated knives from their home but later returned them.
Crimo compared his son’s knife collection to baseball cards and coin collection, saying that the ordeal was a ‘childish outburst.’
“You know I used to collect coins and baseball cards,” he said.
Despite his son’s threats, he sponsored him for a FOID card in December 2019. It was approved in January 2020, allowing the 19-year-old to obtain guns.
“He bought everything on his own, and they’re registered to him,” the father told The Post.
“You know, he drove there, he ordered them, he picked them up, they did his background check on each one,” the father explained, insisting that he had no involvement in the July fourth massacre.
“They make me like I groomed him to do all this,” he went on. “I’ve been here my whole life, and I’m gonna stay here, hold my head up high, because I didn’t do anything wrong.”
While he said that he is ‘furious’ about what happened, he said that he will continue to support his son.
“I want a long sentence,” he said. “That’s life. You know you have consequences for actions. He made a choice. He didn’t have to do that. I think there’s mental illness there, obviously. … I didn’t see a lot of it.”
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