The Highland Park City Council Monday honored the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office for the time it spent preparing for the Independence Day parade shooting trial that ended unexpectedly early last week.
Robert Crimo III, the defendant, pleaded guilty to 69 charges, including 21 counts of first-degree murder and 48 counts of attempted murder, for the shooting during which seven were killed and dozens more wounded. He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 23.
Mayor Nancy Rotering said Crimo’s guilty plea was an “unexpected end,” but an “important step towards justice,” despite the community’s ongoing pain. She expressed her gratitude to State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart and his team, presenting them with a key to the city.
During the meeting, Rinehart thanked the scores of people who came together after the shooting. Although Crimo had pleaded guilty, Rinehart said they had been “1,000% ready to show that jury, show the judge, show the people, the victims and the survivors, that this man was 100% guilty.”
“There is not one person who has not stepped up … whether it was that day at 10:14 am., or in the days and months that followed, that did not rise to the occasion,” he said. “Everybody rose to the occasion in the face of evil, in the face of madness, and in the face of pain.”
Rinehart thanked everyone on his team, sharing the extensive work they put in to prepare for the trial, including talking with the victims and their families.
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“There were definitely times where it was very intense for us on an individual level, and there were tears shed during the prep sessions,” he said. “But we knew we had a job to do, just as the first responders had to professionally deal with an intense situation. We knew that when we got into the trial that we would have to, as professionals, deal with an intense situation.”
Rinehart also acknowledged the different reactions of victims and people in the community. While some wanted a trial to tell the world the story of the victims, others were relieved to not have to relive the trauma.
“Everybody is dealing with this differently,” he said.
There’s still work to do, he said, with the sentencing coming up in April. Rinehart said his office is focused on “presenting the stories of the victims and survivors to the court, and to history.”
During the March 3 hearing at which Crimo pleaded guilty, Assistant State’s Attorney Ben Dillon laid out the key evidence prosecutors would have presented during the trial. On the day of the parade and shooting, he said, Crimo was captured on video approaching a building in downtown Highland Park disguised as a woman and wearing a red, white and blue gaiter to cover his distinctive neck tattoos.
Moments after opening fire from the roof on those attending the parade below, he was seen leaving the building and dropping a cloth-covered semi-automatic assault rifle, Dillon said. Police recovered more than 80 shell casings from atop the building near Central Avenue and Second Street.
After Crimo was identified as a suspect, he was arrested about eight hours later by a police officer who spotted the suspect’s car. The clothing seen in the video was in the vehicle, Dillon said, and Crimo’s purchase of the AR-15-style assault rifle was established through state records.