Waukegan, ill. – Witnesses of the mass shooting in 2022 during a parade of July 4 near Chicago Emotionally revived the massacre during the deception of the shooter on Wednesday – even if Robert E. “Bobby” Crimo III did not show his face in court.
Crimo, 24, pleaded guilty last month to 69 counts, including 21 murder leaders, for the shooting who killed seven people and injured nearly 50 others to a parade of July 4, 2022 in Highland Park, about 30 miles in Chicago.
He faces life without the possibility of parole, because Illinois has no capital pain.
The more than 10 survivors, the members of the family of the victims, the first stakeholders and the witnesses of the shooting who had to make impact declarations on the victims were redone their chance to face Crimo after the state prosecutor of the county of Lake, Eric Rinehart, declared to the court that he had refused to attend his conviction and had chosen to stay in prison.
Lake county judge Victoria Rossetti said that Crimo had been informed that the conviction would continue with or without him during previous justice.
Dana Ruder Ring, a mother of Highland Park, was among the first to make a statement in court, recalling how she helped a little boy to manage while Crimo opened fire.
Crimo fired a roof from the building in crowded streets below 10:14, said officials.
In chaos, said Ring, she came across a woman and a child, both covered with blood, while the woman held the baby to her and said: “Blood is not ours; baby is not mine.”
Ring said that she had wrapped the boy in a blanket and finally gathered him with her family.
The boy “was covered with blood” and “he had missed a shoe,” she said.
“I was just in mom mode” because she took care of him, she told court.
The people of the Lake County courtroom took deep sighs, wiped their eyes and covered their mouths while the prosecutors showed photos and videos of the horrible summer day.
Crimo killed Stephen Straus, 88 years old; Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78 years old; Eduardo Uvaldo, 69 years old; Katherine Goldstein, 64 years old; Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63 years old; And the married couple Kevin McCarthy, 37, and Irina McCarthy, 35.
Gerald Cameron Jr., a retirement commander for the police department of Highland Park, told the “rhythmic rhythm to what extent I thought I was shots” like people of the “French” parade “.
“People were still running, shouted, shouted for help,” said Cameron in his impact declaration on the victim.
After his arrest, Crimo told investigators that he had been planning a mass shooting since 2017 and that he had to open fire on July 4, 2020, said Highland Park police detective Brian Bodden.
Despite the years of reflection and planning, he said Crimo, he thought of abandoning his fatal mission a few minutes earlier.
“I was sitting there waiting because in my head, I thought, you know … should I stay or should I go there?” He said, according to a video of him speaking to the investigators.
It looked like a “sleeping pill” he simply clicked, “said Crimo.
“All of a sudden, has just removed it,” he told investigators. “I go up the stairs and jump on the roof … then I opened fire.”
A few days before the shooting, Crimo had visited the shooting scene where a gathering of abortion rights took place, said Bodden.
Crimo wanted to see where the police would be stationed and how advantageous a high position could, Bodden said.
“Better to be safe than sorry,” said Crimo about his preparation work.
Once he supported relaxation, Crimo told the police, one of his main objectives was to avoid hitting children. He wanted to strike as many adults as possible, “chef up”.
“Everyone was starting to run to cover themselves. I didn’t want to hit the children,” said Crimo. “Everyone meets all.”
Dr. Jeremy Smiley, an emergency doctor who exchanged teams just to be in the parade, said he still couldn’t shake images of this day.
His most sustainable memory is Cooper Roberts, then 8 years old, who was shot down and paralyzed.
“Not a day goes that I don’t think about Cooper,” said Smiley. “This initial feeling of walking and seeing someone’s age of my child, sick like that will never leave me.”
At the end of the hearing on Wednesday, 16 people had made 17 impact statements on the victims, including Cooper’s mother.
Many witnesses have told the horror they experienced and what they had to survive, as well as the chaos that has followed since they lost dear beings.
Many also explained how Crimo must be held responsible for his actions.
Goldstein’s husband made a moving memory of his relationship with his wife, speaking of the way they reconnected and fell in love later in life and how he lost his best friend when she was killed.
The son of Toledo-Zaragoza, whose statement was read at the Court by an assistant district prosecutor, recalled that he had encouraged his father to attend the parade on July 4, but that “it was only a question of a few seconds before a ball took the life of my father”.
Straus’ family spoke of being haunted by his death certificate, who said he died of “multiple shot injuries”. His niece said that there was an empty space now in his father’s life that “no one else can fill”.
Uvaldo’s daughter put the story and the death of her father clearly: “On July 4, 2022, my father lived the American dream and died the American nightmare.”
The legal proceedings will resume at 10 a.m. HE Thursday, when another victim declaration is read. The sentence determination phase will start after that.
Samira Puskar reported to Waukegan and David K. Li from the County of Los Angeles.
