A rapper who supports Donald Trump and has a successful music career is suspected of shooting and murdering six people and injuring more than a dozen others at a July 4 parade in Highland Park, Illinois, 25 miles north of Chicago.
Awake the Rapper, also known as Robert ‘Bobby’ Crimo III, is a 22-year-old rapper with more than 16,000 monthly Spotify listeners and a net worth of $100,000.
A unsettling footage of Crimo putting shots on the floor of a classroom while wearing armor in what appears to be a joke about school shootings and a drawing of him shooting people online are among the music videos he posted online last fall.
The most recent image Crimo posted on his Discord server was a picture of Budd Dwyer, the Pennsylvania state treasurer who committed suicide on live television in the 1980s, with the caption, “I wish politicians still gave speeches like this.” Crimo also had a Discord server where he would chat with friends and admirers.
Along with talking violent portrayals of murder and death, he routinely commented on a message board and made references to suicide. One recent video he shared showed a beheading.
Trolls stormed the server after the massacre, celebrated Crimo, and made memes about it before it was taken offline.
He was “known to law enforcement,” according to the police, although it is not yet clear if this was because of the horrible internet content he published, which has a frightening resonance in the wake of the massacre.
The victims have so far been identified as 78-year-old grandfather Nicolas Toledo and married mother and synagogue instructor Jacki Sundheim.
There were a total of 26 individuals who were hurt, with 25 of them having gunshot wounds. Six are still being treated in the hospital. The casualties range in age from eight to 85, with four or five of those who were shot thought to be minors.
It was the eleventh mass shooting of the holiday weekend, bringing the total number of mass homicides in the US this year to 15.
On yet another violent day in the US:
At 10.15am, during the Independence Day procession, the shooter was standing on a roof and firing erratically at onlookers.
Before people began to leave, revelers believed the shooting to be fireworks or an extension of the July 4 celebrations.
Shooter’ fled the site in a Honda, inflicting scores of injuries and five adult deaths at the scene and one more death from their wounds in the hospital.
This led to an eight-hour manhunt before his capture following a car pursuit.
disseminated violent content online and in music videos, according to the police, and was “known to law enforcement.”
His mother is a Mormon alternative healer, while his father is a local businessman who campaigned for mayor.
Joe Biden expressed his dismay and promised to keep fighting the “epidemic of gun violence.”
In another weekend of mayhem, two police officers were hurt in a shooting in Philadelphia hours later.
As he vowed to continue the fight against the shooting “epidemic,” President Joe Biden stated that he and his wife Jill were “struck by the senseless gun violence that has yet again brought misery to an American community on this Independence Day.”
Although Kamala Harris is anticipated in Chicago today, it is unknown if she will meet with victims.
After an hour-long manhunt involving local and federal authorities, Crimo was captured. Now it is known that his mother Denise Pesina, 48, was previously detained on suspicion of domestic assault and that his father, Bob Sr., 58, owns a local deli and once campaigned for mayor.
Her Facebook page indicates that she is interested in alternative therapies and appears to have converted to Mormonism.
Crimo has two siblings, including a sister named Lynette Pesina who is 27 years old. The family lives in a cozy $425,000 home in Highwood, close to the shooting location.
Crimo was spotted in Where’s Waldo attire in 2020, showing up to a Donald Trump rally. Another image of the suspect wearing a Donald Trump flag around him has surfaced.
The Chicago Tribune described one of the demonstrations where Crimo was photographed as “heated,” but added that no arrests were made since counter-protesters attended the event. At that rally, the former president was not present.
According to the suspect’s IMDb biography, he was raised in a Highland Park, Illinois, Italian-American home as the middle child of three.
The suspect has family ties to the neighborhood dating back to his grandfather, Robert Crimo, who was born there in 1929. 2018 saw Robert Crimo’s passing.
The suspect’s parents are identified in his obituary as Bob Jr. and Denise. The majority of the family members mentioned in the homage are based in the Highland Park region.
The family resides in Highwood, a neighborhood immediately north of Highland Park, along Pleasant Avenue.
Across the street from Oak Terrace Elementary School is where they live.
In Highland Park, Crimo’s father campaigned for mayor in April 2019.
It doesn’t seem like a political party supported his campaign. He ran with the motto “A Person for the People.”
The town’s liberal mayor Nancy Rotering, who ran her campaign in part on a platform supporting gun regulation, defeated Republican Bob Crimo.
Bob Crimo stated that he owned two eateries in the neighborhood, White Hen in Ravinia and Bob’s Pantry & Deli in Braeside, Illinois, in a pre-election biography.
“I’m running for mayor as a person for the people in our town,” he stated on his profile.
It’s my way of giving back to the community that has supported me so much over the years, he continued. I will continue to reside nearby.
Bob Crimo was pictured with Denise Pesina in a 2018 article with the Chicago Tribune.
He calls his establishment “family-run and family-oriented.”
Pesina was detained in Highland Park in February 2015 on suspicion of domestic battery while operating a motor vehicle, according to Patch.com at the time.
The outcome of that case has not been discussed in greater depth.
Bob Crimo posted on Facebook after losing: “This has been a terrific experience.” I’m really grateful to all of my supporters.
Even though the polls didn’t go in my favor, I’ll keep working hard to further Highland Park’s development for my fellow residents. I want to thank you all once more.
Bob Crimo only follows one account on his Twitter page, which is an archive of tweets from the late President Donald Trump.
Bob Crimo liked a tweet that said, “Protect the Second Amendment like your life depends on it” on May 27, the day when 19 children and two instructors were murdered at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Denise Pesina, the mother of the suspect, runs Trilogy Energy Systems, which is a healing practice.
She frequently poses with her sphinx cat Sanjay in her candid self-revealing images that she shares on Facebook.
The well-being of ALL energy systems is a priority for Trilogy Energy Systems, according to the company’s mission statement.
A partnership for FULL SPECTRUM HEALING. One person has the power to affect countless lives.
According to his biography on that page, Pesina studied traditional Chinese medicine at Shanghai University and ayurveda at the Ayurvedic Institute in New Mexico. Ayurveda is a system of alternative medicine.
Crimo rapped: “My actions will be brave and my thought is needless, I know what I have to do, I know what’s in it, not only for myself, but for everyone else.” This is a line from one of the suspect’s songs.
The FBI claims that Crimo has tattoos of four tally marks with a line across them on his right cheek, red roses and green leaves on his neck, and the word “Awake” written in cursive above his left brow.
The federal government said that Crimo has connections to the Illinois towns of Elgin, DeKalb, and Rockford.
The suspect is a “rapper, singer, songwriter, actor and filmmaker from Chicago,” according to his IMDb website.
The music video for the rapper’s song “On My Mind” has received the most views on his YouTube page. The suspect is seen in a classroom on the video.
Both of Crimo’s formerly active channels have been removed for “violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.”
The song starts off as a slow ballad with the lyrics “You’re always on my mind.” I want to have you as mine, cute with the large ass. Time is running out for me. Soon we can smoke, relax online, and miss class.