Inside the Sick Posts of July 4 Massacre ‘Person of Interest’

July 5, 2022 3oliver

HIGHLAND PARK, Illinois—The 22-year-old Illinois man identified as a person of interest in Monday’s parade massacre is an amateur rapper who posted disturbing videos on his YouTube channel, including a crude animation depicting a gunman being killed by police.

In addition to videos filled with violent imagery and mass-shooting fantasy, Robert “Bobby” Crimo last year posted a video on his personal blog of Central Avenue in Highland Park—the main street of the parade route.

Another one showed a headline referring to Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy. He reportedly posted video of a beheading to a message board.

Crimo, who was taken into custody about seven hours after a sniper attack left six dead and dozens more injured, went by the name of Awake the Rapper on social media.

His social-media footprint indicated that he is a video-game enthusiast and professional wrestling fan. One photo posted to Twitter showed him wearing a Trump flag like a cape; in another, he sported an FBI cap. There was a photo of him at a Trump rally, dressed as Waldo, but he also liked a Twitter video of President Biden.

On most of Crimo’s social-media pages, and embedded in several of his videos, is a symbol that roughly resembles that used by Suomen Sisu, a far-right Finnish organization. Crimo, however, does not appear to mention the national group in his postings. He was also the administrator of a Discord channel named “SS” that has since been taken down.

An Instagram account also belonging to Crimo—whose family is from the Highland Park area—showcases several black-and-white portraits that reveal him with a tattoo of a number on one side of his temple and the word “Awake” above one of his eyebrows. Crimo also appears to have hatch marks that add up to five under his eye.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Twitter</div>

A neighbor who requested to remain anonymous told The Daily Beast that Crimo would ride around the neighborhood and nearby nature preserves on an electric bicycle, blasting heavy metal. He used to drive a car with “pussymobile” written across the back of it.

“The family’s been in the area for a long time,” she said, adding that his father is a small business owner who ran for mayor of Highland Park in 2019 and lost in a two-to-one margin to the incumbent.

“We don’t really know him, but we see him riding around the neighborhood,”she said. “We never had any interaction with him, other than we just see him driving around.”

His uncle, Paul Crimo, also told Fox 23 Chicago that he saw no “warning signs” that would indicate Crimo could be involved in Monday’s shooting.

“I saw no signs of trouble. And if I did see signs I would have said something,” Crimo said, adding that his nephew was a “YouTube rapper” who once worked at Panera Bread.

Crimo’s videos, however, are full of dark themes.

In one, titled “On my Mind,” Crimo is seen inside an empty classroom in tactical gear and holding the American Flag. In another, he raps, “Like a sleepwalker, I am breaking through no matter what” alongside snippets of footage in which he appears to be armed.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Highland Park Police</div> — Highland Park Police

The video titled “Toy Solider” is an animated cartoon that begins with a student texting in class while Crimo can be heard rapping “fuck this world.” It cuts between images of a heavily armed shooter going inside a school and opening fire and then engaging with police outside. The final scene shows the shooter lying in a pool of blood.

Crimo also appeared to have a blog, where he posted several of his music videos and photos of himself. In one video titled “Smiley Face Solider,” Crimo records himself painting an armed solider with a yellow cartoon smiley face on a brick wall while the Star Wars theme song plays in the background.

NBC News reported that Crimo had his own Discord channel, which was disabled after the shooting, and that he frequents a message board devoted to death, where he posted the beheading video.

A listing for Crimo on the entertainment site IMDB describes him as a “six foot Hip hop phenom” who is the “middle child of three and of Italian descent.”