Highland Park Police: 'Person of Interest' Is in Custody

Robert E. Crimo was taken into custody 8 hours after mass shooting in Chicago suburb
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 4, 2022 7:55 PM CDT
Parade Shooting 'Person of Interest' Now in Custody
Empty chairs, a bicycle, and a stroller are seen after a mass shooting at the Highland Park Fourth of July parade in downtown Highland Park, Ill., a Chicago suburb on Monday, July 4, 2022.   (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Police say a man they have described as a "person of interest" in the mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade Monday is now in custody. Highland Park police say 22-year-old Robert E. Crimo was taken into custody without incident around eight hours after the shooting, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Crimo was taken into custody on US 41, about five miles north of where the parade was fired on, after a North Chicago officer spotted him and gave chase, police say. Before the arrest, police surrounded a Highland Park address linked to Crimo. No charges have been filed yet and police have not disclosed a possible motive.

Police say the gunman fired on the Highland Park parade from a rooftop in the Chicago suburb, killing six people, wounding at least 30, and causing hundreds of paradegoers to flee in panic, the AP reports. Highland Park Police Commander Chris O’Neill says the shooter fired a "high-powered rifle" from a place where he was "very difficult to see." Dr. Brigham Temple at NorthShore University Health Center says 26 patients, ranging in age from eight to 85, were brought to the hospital, reports CNN.

"It is devastating that a celebration of America was ripped apart by our uniquely American plague," Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker told a news conference. In an earlier statement, the governor said, "There are no words for the kind of evil that shows up at a public celebration of freedom, hides on a roof and shoots innocent people with an assault rifle," per NBC Chicago. President Biden said he and Jill Biden were "shocked by the senseless gun violence that has yet again brought grief to an American community on this Independence Day." (More Highland Park mass shooting stories.)

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