Some Highland Park residents still avoid Port Clinton Square, right across the street from the building where, nearly three years ago, a young man sprayed bullets into a crowd gathered for the town’s annual 4th of July parade.
“This is the first time I’ve had enough courage to walk over there without breaking down,” Vincent N. Carani said on Thursday morning.
Robert Crimo III pleaded guilty to one of the worst mass shootings in Illinois history last week. Yet across Highland Park, people are still trying to make sense of the collective trauma they experienced at their community parade.
Seven people died in the shooting. Their names are now etched into a plaque at a memorial site several blocks away from where they were murdered.
Another 48 people were injured by shrapnel or by one of the dozens of bullets Crimo fired from an assault rifle, prosecutors say. Most of the surviving victims were expected to testify at Crimo’s trial, which ended abruptly last Monday after Crimo announced he was ready to plead guilty, right before opening statements were scheduled to begin.
Survivor Ashbey Beasley said she held her breath in the courtroom as Crimo confessed, because he had backed out of a previous plea deal. Now that the trial has ended, WBEZ visited the northern suburb to see how residents are processing Crimo’s guilty plea.
Vincent N. Carani
Carani grew up in Highland Park, right around the corner from Crimo’s parents’ home. The town is the source of some of his happiest childhood memories, including going to the parade each year.
Carani, 48, said he still can’t believe the shooting happened. He thinks state police should never have allowed Crimo to obtain a gun ownership card before he turned 21, the legal age for gun possession in Illinois. He also thinks that assault rifles like the one prosecutors say Crimo used should be banned.
“I’m not against guns,” Carani said. “I’ve shot plenty of guns in my day. But we have rifles for hunting or shooting clay pigeons, not annihilating human beings.”
He also thinks his community failed Crimo by not intervening sooner, like in 2019, when Crimo attempted suicide.
Carani has had his own struggles with depression. But he said he’s getting professional help.
“I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve been to the hospital and been treated,” he said. “Why should I be ashamed? If we didn’t have such a stigma [around mental health], maybe this kid would also have received the help that he needed.”
David Gold
David Gold, 70, can’t erase the memory of Crimo climbing the building where Gold works and opening fire.
He also thinks it was cruel of Crimo to back out of a plea deal last June in front of dozens of survivors in the courtroom gallery.
“I think he’s playing psychological games,” Gold said. “He’s just trying to torture the families and the victims.”
Even now, after Crimo has changed his plea, Gold is still skeptical — especially after Crimo signed his trial waiver using President Donald Trump’s name instead of his own.
“That tells you all you need to know about him,” Gold said. “He thinks that everything’s a joke.”
Legal experts say Crimo’s plea still stands. Gold hopes it will help his community recover.
“I just hope everyone finds some kind of solace and peace within themselves, and whatever it takes to heal and go forward and have a happy, healthy rest of their life. You just can’t quit living, but you don’t forget.”
Debra Kahn
For Debra Kahn, 60, living with the memory of the shooting means remembering the screams she heard outside her home that day, and how she helped people hide in her building.
But it also means remembering how the community united in the wake of the tragedy.
“It changed Highland Park for me,” Kahn said, “because I didn’t realize how close-knit of a community it is. I have so much trust now in my neighbors.”
Those neighbors rallied around the mourning families after the shooting. They organized vigils and started GoFundMe pages to support them.
Crimo is scheduled to be sentenced April 23. Kahn believes a life sentence is what he deserves.
“I think that he showed that he’s a dangerous person and that he shouldn’t be living outside of prison,” she said.
But Kahn also sees the shooting as a lesson for her community to do more to help people struggling with their mental health.
“I think that it will teach us, in the long run, to figure out those mental health issues,” she said. “I don’t think you can point a finger at anybody — at the community, at the parents, at the schools — because I think we’re still learning.”
Anna Savchenko is a reporter for WBEZ. You can reach her at asavchenko@wbez.org.