HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — Several victims of the Highland Park Fourth of July parade mass shooting have filed lawsuits against the Illinois State Police, alleging it allowed the suspected shooter to obtain firearms.
Five lawsuits filed in the last month in the Illinois Court of Claims accuse the state police of having negligently approved Robert E. Crimo III’s gun ownership application in 2019 even though the Highland Park police had issued a “clear and present danger” alert against him months earlier.
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Crimo is charged with firing from a rooftop on July 4, 2022, killing seven people and wounding 48 others.
The state police – who won’t comment – have said the alert didn’t rise to the level of denying him a gun ownership card.
The lawsuits dispute that, saying the alert, prompted by a police house call, included details that showed Crimo was not fit to obtain guns.
“The atrocity carried out by Robert Crimo III was predictable and preventable, if only the Illinois State Police and its Firearm Services Bureau had followed their internal rules, laws, and code provisions that applied to dangerous individuals like Robert Crimo III,” according to a lawsuit filed by the family of Eduardo Uvaldo, who died in the shooting.
His family’s lawyer, Matthew Sims, said the “red flag should have been maintained and used to deny the shooter a FOID just weeks later. Instead, it appears the State Police did nothing with it.”
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Crimo applied for a gun ownership card when he was 19 and required the signature of his father, Robert Crimo Jr. The father pleaded guilty last year to misdemeanor charges of reckless conduct for signing the application, admitting that he knew his son was not fit to own a weapon.
According to the lawsuits, the red flag was prompted when Highland Park police responded to the Crimo household in September 2019. A family member had called police, claiming Crimo was suicidal and had threatened to “kill everyone,” the lawsuit states.
The police came and confiscated more than a dozen knives, a dagger and a sword. But they said the father told them the weapons were his, and the family denied that Crimo had threatened them and himself.
Three other similar lawsuits were filed by the firm Levin and Perconti on behalf of victims Zoe Kolpack, Stephen Kolpack and Michael Joyce. A fifth lawsuit, representing nearly 40 victims and relatives, was filed by the Romanucci & Blandin law firm.
In 2022, the same families filed suit in state court against Crimo, his father and gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson, which made the murder weapon.
The new lawsuits were filed in the Illinois Court of Claims, where people can sue state agencies for damages. The cases haven’t yet been given a hearing date, according to a spokesperson for the Illinois Secretary of State’s office, which oversees the court.
Shortly after the mass shooting, Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly said there had been “insufficient basis” to deny Crimo III’s request for a firearm owners ID card – with family members denying his threats and no domestic violence order or court order restraining him from having a gun.
Days later, Kelly and Gov. J.B. Pritzker enacted an emergency rule for broader use of “clear and present danger” reports – aimed at barring applicants from receiving a FOID card or revoking a current card for those who exhibit violent or suicidal behavior.
The video in the player above is from an earlier report.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire – Copyright Chicago Sun-Times 2024.)
