Bobby Crimo Claims Highland Park Parade Shooting Was FBI 'False Flag'
https://patch.com/illinois/highlandpark/bobby-crimo-claims-highland-park-parade-shooting-was-fbi-false-flag
Posted Thu, Oct 26, 2023 at 3:57 pm CT | Updated Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 2:19 pm CT
WAUKEGAN, IL — In a video call recorded from the Lake County Jail, the accused Highland Park parade shooter claims that last year's massacre was a government "false flag operation."
Bobby Crimo is awaiting trial on 117 felony counts in connection with allegations he opened fire on the July 4, 2022, parade from a downtown Highland Park rooftop, killing seven people and wounding dozens more.
Authorities said he confessed to carrying out the shooting and have released images captured from security cameras apparently showing him in disguise as he leaves the scene of the shooting.
In the 37-second video — recorded and posted to the internet by a woman who identifies herself on her blog as a "registered nurse, mental health advocate, and investigative journalist" — Crimo names two purported FBI agents who were "on the ground" and had "significant roles participating in the operation."
The woman's blog lays out an elaborate conspiracy theory, which imagines that the founder of the extreme gore website Documenting Reality was operating an "FBI honeypot site" as a result of a plea deal with the feds to avoid jail time for running another website that that posted revenge porn and snuff imagery.
Crimo was known to be a member of Documenting Reality and, according to the conspiracy theory, after meeting several people involved in the site was somehow compelled to be a patsy in the shooting, which was supposedly carried out by multiple shooters — including the pair of supposed FBI agents — and from different vantage points than authorities have said.
Despite Crimo's alleged confession, he claims in the video clip that the "interview was a performance" and that "they tortured and coerced me into falsifying evidence."
Earlier this year, Crimo had his privileges to make video calls suspended after reportedly placing a prank call to a New York Post reporter on New Year's Eve.
His privileges were reinstated after 30 days, according to a Lake County Sheriff's Office spokesperson.
With regard to the video clip in which Crimo claimed that "none of this is real" and "the witnesses are actors," the sheriff's office determined Crimo has not violated any jail rules, but the woman broke the rules by recording it and has been banned from making other calls to the Lake County Jail.
State law provides pretrial detainees with certain rights, including phone and video visitation, according to the sheriff's office. Although they are monitored by jail officials, participants are forbidden from recording them.
Prosecutors are aware of the video but declined further comment to the Chicago Sun-Times, which first reported on the video, while an assistant public defender representing Crimo and the FBI also both declined to provide comment.
It is not clear if Crimo's court-appointed attorneys will advance the theory that he was brainwashed into being a patsy for a mass shooting carried out by the government.
Authorities have not publicly ascribed a motive to the shooting, which has fanned the flames of online speculation and hoaxes.
In the days following the shooting, several conspiracy theories popped up on the internet claiming that Crimo did not carry out the shooting on his own or that the government was somehow involved.
Among them, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested on Facebook that the Highland Park 4th of July shooting and a separate, non-fatal shooting in Philadelphia "almost sounds like it's designed to persuade Republicans to go along with more gun control. I mean, after all, remember we didn't see that happen at all the Pride parades in the month of June, but as soon as we hit MAGA month, as soon as we hit the month we're all celebrating loving our country, we have shootings on July 4th."
The Georgia Republican admitted it sounded like a conspiracy theory before defining "a right-wing conspiracy theory" as the "news that's just six months early."
Previous claims that mass shootings were government false flag operations led to a billion-dollar defamation settlement against radio host Alex Jones on behalf of the families of victims and survivors of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Crimo is due back in court on Dec. 11, and Lake County Circuit Judge Victoria Rosetti has said she plans to set a preliminary date at that hearing for a jury trial to be held next year.
His father, who faces seven counts of reckless conduct stemming from his signature authorizing his son's application for a firearm ownership identification, or FOID, card, is due to stand trial Nov. 6.