Robert "Bobby" E. Crimo III, the person of interest identified and arrested by police in connection with Monday's shooting in a Chicago suburb that killed six people and wounded 38 others, fantasized about going out in a blaze of glory in social media posts before the shooting rampage.
The 22-year-old, who carried out the mass shooting during a 4th of July parade at Highland Park, identified as a local amateur rapper with a history of disturbing social media posts, including one image that depicts someone who appears to be shot dead by police following a mass shooting.
'F-ck This World'
Crimo, who performs as "Awake the Rapper," posted an animated cartoon titled "Toy Solider" to his since-deleted YouTube page. The clip begins with a student texting in class while Crimo can be heard rapping "f-ck this world."
The video includes images of a man wearing an armored vest, going inside what appears to be a school and opening fire before engaging with police outside. The video ends with the armed man lying face down in an apparent pool of blood with a few police officers standing in front of him, according to screenshots posted to social media.
Crimo's Other Disturbing Social Media Posts
Crimo released one music video called "Are You Awake" in October 2021 that includes drawings of a man aiming a rifle at another person, according to a Fox News report.
The video also shows an image of a newspaper clipping about Lee Harvey Oswald, who shot and killed President John F. Kennedy, and another image that shows a drawing with blood spurting from a person's body, according to the report. The YouTube account that hosted his videos, which had previously been accessible to the public, was unavailable Monday night.
Crimo had his own Discord server, where fans and people who knew him would chat. The community featured a politics board filled with nihilistic political memes. The most recent post before the shooting, which was posted in March, was a picture of Budd Dwyer, the Pennsylvania state treasurer who shot and killed himself on live television in the late 1980s, along with the caption "I wish politicians still gave speeches like this."
He also posted frequently to a message board that discussed graphic depictions of murder, suicide and death. His most recent post to that message board came last week, when he posted a video of a beheading.
Crimo also posted at least twice about former President Donald Trump, according to an NBC News report. He was seen with a Trump flag draped over him in a Twitter post from June 27, 2021, according to the outlet. The caption on the post only read "spam."
A video posted to Crimo's YouTube page on Jan. 2, 2021, appears to show Crimo among a throng of protesters cheering for Trump's presidential motorcade outside an airport. Crimo flips the phone's orientation to reveal his face at the end of the video.
There also another photo of him at a Trump rally, dressed as Waldo.
