The suspect in the mass shooting at an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Illinois, threatened to “kill everyone” in his home three years before the deadly attack, authorities have revealed.
Lake County Sheriff deputy chief Christopher Covelli said in a press conference on Tuesday afternoon that officers were called to the home of Robert E Crimo in September 2019 and confiscated several knives, but did not arrest the suspect.
Mr Crimo is suspected of scaling a fire escape and firing more than 70 rounds down onto the July 4th parade crowd from a business rooftop, leaving five dead at the scene, fatally wounding two, and injuring dozens.
He was arrested about eight hours later after an intensive manhunt.
Mr Covelli earlier said that the suspect “planned his attack for several weeks” and dressed in women’s clothes as a disguise so that he could slip under the radar as he fled the scene.
The gun used in the shooting was a high-powered rifle “similar to an AR-15”, police said, and like the second rifle found inside Crimo’s vehicle when he was arrested on Monday, it too was legally purchased.
The names of six of the seven victims have been released: Katherine Goldstein, 64, Irina McCarthy, 35, Kevin McCarthy, 37, Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63, Stephen Strauss, 88, and Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78.
