The father of a man arrested after six people were shot dead in Chicago liked a tweet supporting the Second Amendment days after the Texas school massacre.
Police arrested Robert E. Cremo III, 22, on Monday as a “Person of Interest” after the 4th of July killings in Highland Park that also injured 36 people.
It has since emerged that on May 27 — three days after the murders of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Ovaldi — his father, Bob Cremo’s Twitter account, liked a tweet saying: “Protecting the Second Amendment like your life depends on it.”
The Second Amendment is a part of the United States Constitution used to protect the right to bear arms.
According to his Twitter page, the deli’s owner, Mr. Cremo, who ran for mayor in Highland Park in April 2019, only follows one account – an archived account of former President Donald Trump’s tweets.
Robert Cremo was arrested after the Chicago shooting
(Robert Cremo/Reuters)
He was defeated by the town’s current mayor, Nancy Rottering, who campaigned partly on a liberal platform around gun control.
His son was arrested seven hours after a gunman sitting on a rooftop opened fire on flag-waving families and children riding bicycles at the Independence Day Parade on Monday in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park.
Police said the gunman climbed onto the roof of a shop using a ladder in an alley.
Crimo, 22, goes by the stage name “Awake the Rapper” and has over 16,000 listeners per month on his Spotify page.
(Robert Cremo/Reuters)
Police identified Cremo as a person interested in the shooting and said he should be considered armed and dangerous.
Hours later, they announced that he had been taken into custody after a brief chase near Lake Forest, six miles from the site of the massacre.
Crimo is Bobby’s nickname and he is an amateur rapper. He reportedly uploaded a number of videos online, several months before the shooting, filled with violent images and depictions of mass murder.
A baby bike was left behind in the wake of a mass shooting in an affluent Chicago suburb
(Max Hermann/Reuters)
He goes by the stage name “Awake the Rapper” and has over 16,000 listeners per month on his Spotify page with a net worth of $100,000 (£82,645).
A recent video posted by Crimo to YouTube showed the aftermath of a school shooting with him wrapping himself in an American flag.
In 2020, he was photographed attending a rally for Trump dressed as the main character in “Where’s Waldo?”
In another photo on Twitter, he is seen draped in a Trump flag like a cloak. He was also photographed wearing an FBI hat and had liked a video of Joe Biden.
Police said they did not know the motive for the Highland Park shooting. The ages of the wounded ranged between eight and 85 years, including four or five children.
Law enforcement searches a shooting area at the Fourth of July parade on July 4, 2022 in Highland Park, Illinois
(Getty Images)
Nicholas Toledo, a man in his 70s, was the first victim his family recognized late Monday.
Another victim was Jackie Sondheim, a teacher at a synagogue in Highland Park. The North Shore congregation in Israel confirmed her death in an email to worshipers.
A senior Mexican foreign ministry official confirmed on Twitter that at least one of the dead was a Mexican citizen.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the Uvdale shooting was on May 27.
Additional reporting by agencies.
