Authorities on Tuesday released details of two previous encounters between the suspect in the Highland Park shooting and law enforcement.Didn't Illinois have a red flag law at the time of these incidents? Yes -- it went into effect on January 1, 2019. But in circumstances like this, it's highly ineffective:
An individual reported to Highland Park police in 2019 that Robert E. Crimo III had attempted suicide, according to Christopher Covelli, a spokesman for the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force.
The second incident was in September 2019, when Crimo had threatened to “kill everyone,” according to a family member who reported it to Highland Park police, Covelli said.
Police removed 16 knives, a dagger and a sword from Crimo’s residence, which were confiscated, Covelli said. At the time, there was no probable cause to arrest him, no evidence that he possessed firearms and no complaints were signed by any victims, he said.
Illinois’ law works like this: A family or household member can bring a complaint to a local court, alleging that a person has threatened to use his or her firearm illegally. If the court is convinced of a potential danger, it orders the person to appear in court and their weapons to be seized by the state, generally for six months up to a year, when the weapons then must be returned to the owner.But it can keep firearms out of the hands of someone like the shooting suspect only if someone takes the trouble to file a report. Who's going to do that? Parents who already have enough work just trying to cope with a child like this?
A person’s Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card can also be revoked in Illinois, if they threaten or commit serious physical violence. In fact, there’s a mandatory-reporting requirement for law enforcement officials, school administrators, and physicians, who must make a report to authorities, within 24 hours of learning of any kind of threat.
Illinois’ law can also be used to keep firearms away from someone who does not yet possess them....
A sane society wouldn't sell assault weapons at all, to anyone. A sane society wouldn't have more privately owned guns than people. But a society that had an out-of-control gun culture like ours but was trying to mitigate some of its toxic effects wouldn't make action in the case of a walking time bomb like Bobby Crito III optional -- it would look at the suicide and the threats and the hoarding of weapons and simply prevent this person from buying a gun until there was good reason to believe that the person wasn't a danger to himself or others.
But we treat being deprived of access to firearms as a fate worse than death, rather than as a step that's necessary for the safety of troubled individuals and the people around them. And so the carnage continues unabated.
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AND: Dad helped his son get a gun permit, even after these incidents.
The Highland Park massacre suspect was too young to get a gun permit in 2019 from the state of Illinois, but his father sponsored him for one anyway — even after the son had threatened to kill himself and his family, authorities said Tuesday.That would be this dad:
... in December 2019, when he was 19, Crimo applied for his FOID [firearm owner's identification] card, according to the state police. Because he was under 21, the application had to be sponsored by a parent or guardian, the state police said. His father gave his approval, the agency said.
The father of Robert “Bobby” Crimo III ... liked a tweet supporting the Second Amendment just days after the Uvalde school massacre.
... Bob Crimo, a longtime deli owner who previously ran a failed campaign for mayor of Highland Park, on May 27 “liked” a tweet that read: “Protect the Second Amendment like your life depends on it.”
The tweet came just days after a shooter made his way into Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and killed 19 children and two teachers on May 24.
His Twitter page indicates that the elder Crimo follows just one account — an archived account of former President Donald Trump.
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