Highland Park 2022 mass shooter sentenced today

Eric Rinehart

In a courtroom heavy with the weight of "oceans of grief," Robert “Bobby” Crimo III, the 24-year-old scumcrumpet who turned a 2022 Fourth of July parade in Highland Park into a slaughter, was sentenced to life without parole Thursday. Judge Victoria Rossetti didn’t mince words: "The court finds he’s irrevocably depraved," she said, slamming the gavel on any hope of rehabilitation for the man who killed seven and wounded nearly 50.

Crimo, true to form, couldn’t even be bothered to show up. His lawyer said he skipped the sentencing hearing that kicked off Wednesday and refused to address the court. His family? They bailed too, per a lawyer for Crimo’s dad. 

The cowardice didn’t shock Liz Turnipseed, shot in the pelvis that day and still hobbling. "I wasn’t surprised at all," she told reporters outside court. "I don’t need to see his face. I know what he looks like. I watched the videos with the confession that was enough to see how cavalier he was about murdering seven people."

The Highland Park parade, about 30 miles from Chicago, was a bloodbath. Crimo’s 83 shots in 40 seconds ended the lives of Stephen Straus, 88; Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78; Eduardo Uvaldo, 69; Katherine Goldstein, 64; Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63; and Kevin and Irina McCarthy, 37 and 35, leaving their son Aidan orphaned. 

Cooper Roberts, just 8-years-old, was paralyzed. 

"In the middle of that joy, in the middle of that celebration, 83 shots rang out… Eighty-three attempts to reduce light in the world," Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart told the court, his voice cutting through sobs and embraces in the room.

Even with a life sentence all but guaranteed, tension gripped the courtroom until Rossetti’s ruling. "We just all held our breath just to make sure that he would never, ever be free again," said Ashley Beasley, a Highland Park resident who was at the parade. "And now that that's happened, it's like we can exhale."

A bizarre hiccup nearly derailed things when a sheriff’s deputy slipped Rossetti a note, halting proceedings. Survivors thought Crimo might finally face them. Nope—just him whining about missing jail property, his lawyers said. "The offender had a concern about something that was happening in the jail," Rinehart told reporters, brushing it off. "It was not related to the sentencing hearing."

Wednesday’s testimony set the stage, with over a dozen witnesses reliving the horror. Erica Weeder, who survived alongside her husband John Kezdy—later killed in a 2023 bike accident—laid bare the scars. “Because of this mass shooting, this act of terror,” she said, “I and my children and entire community now know no one is ever really safe.” Weeder flinches at construction noise, haunted by a day that won’t let go.

Crimo, after his capture, claimed he tried to avoid kids, aiming “chest up” at adults. What a considerate piece of human feces.

Illinois’ lack of a death penalty left life without parole as the max punishment—a fact that stings for some. Lance Northcutt, representing the McCarthys’ orphaned son, put it bluntly: "Justice would be that little Aidan McCarthy would walk out of a kindergarten today and see his mother and his father waiting there with open arms to greet him."

The sentence? Seven consecutive life terms for the murders, plus a 50-year term for attempted murder and 47 more concurrent 50-year terms. "He will not survive his first life sentence, then there would be six more," Rinehart said, driving the point home.

Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering, outside court, nailed the bitter irony of Crimo’s rampage on a day celebrating freedom. "Our peer nations can't understand how we put up with this," she said. "But how free are you if you're constantly worried that somebody's going to come leave 83 bullets on your community in under a minute? That's not freedom."

The courtroom’s exhale doesn’t erase the trauma. It just locks the monster away.

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Highland Park, IL: 6 dead, at least 24 wounded.

Fox News screen grab

At least 6 people were killed and dozens more wounded at Highland Park, a wealthy Chicago suburb during the July 4th parade. A gunman, described as. a white male, 18 to 20, began shooting at people with what sounded like an automatic rifle. That will soon be determined as the weapon has been recovered but the scumbag got away for now.

Illinois police began the manhunt for the suspect. In addition to his possible age, he has black hair and a slim build.

Blood in the street

Police have recovered a rifle but said the unidentified gunman is still considered armed and dangerous.

He killed at least six people and wounded about two dozen more from a rooftop perch before runnin, Lake County Sheriff's Office Deputy Chief Chris Covelli said during an afternoon news briefing. 

The gunfire erupted at Central Avenue and 2nd Street in Highland Park at around 10:24 a.m. CT Monday. As of this writing, the gunman remains at large and police say he has not taken hostages nor barricaded himself.

State police, Chicago cops, and deputies from the Lake County Sheriff's Office bravely ran to the scene rather than doing the Uvalde maneuver of peaceful waiting. This is how police are supposed to respond.

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Law enforcement will be looking at the cell phones of parade goers to try putting information together that might help in their investigation.

Officials are asking residents to avoid the area as they continue to hunt for the suspect.

This is a breaking story.

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WaPo blames the SUV for killing, injuring Waukesha parade attendees

The Washington Post, a leftist propaganda outlet, tweeted that the parade attack in Waukesha, WI that killed at least six people was perpetrated by an SUV, making the vehicle seem to have a mind of its own. The rag conveniently omitted the important part of the story: that the SUV was being driven by a Black Lives Matter supporter who stated that he hates White people and had a criminal record that dates back to 1999.

Darrell Brooks, a Black man, was charged with intentional homicide after killing six White people ages 8 to 81 and injuring more than 40 others at the Waukesha Thanksgiving Parade.

But the Post didn't report that little tidbit. Instead they appeared to blame the vehicle. That's not journalism, that's propaganda.

"Here's what we know so far on the sequence of events that led to the Waukesha tragedy caused by [an] SUV," the rag tweeted. 

The verbal calisthenics to avoid implicating the opposing ideological view they hold about race is astounding. They worded the tweet in such a way as to get as much mental distance from what happened as possible.

"A quarter-mile from the rotary building, at 4:39 p.m., an officer told a dispatcher a maroon Ford Escape ‘just blew by [him]’ at White Rock and Hartwell avenues, the intersection where barricades blocking traffic to the parade were removed just a minute before, according to police audio and time codes provided by Broadcastify," the Post wrote in the report published Tuesday. "A few moments later, the SUV rammed through the parade participants, killing five and injuring more than 40 people, including children."

This came after they knew the identity of the driver.

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Although Brooks was finally mentioned in the fifth paragraph, the following paragraphs read, "The SUV then drove down Main Street, hitting more than 40 people and killing at least five of them… Down the road, instead of following the parade route and make a turn to get to Wisconsin Avenue, the SUV went straight through North West Avenue, passing over the barriers."

Normal people who read this crap blasted the Washington Post on social media for making the vehicle the villain.

"What did they charge the SUV with?" Spectator contributing editor Stephen Miller asked.

"It wasn't caused by an SUV; it was caused by the driver of an SUV," Los Angeles Times columnist Patt Morrison tweeted.

"Hope the SUV has a good lawyer," Washington Free Beacon reporter Chuck Ross quipped.

"Blaming guns for shootings and SUVs for truck attacks. At least there’s consistency," Daily Caller correspondent Anders Hagstrom wrote.

And so on.

This wasn't a self-driving Amazon delivery vehicle; it was the same vehicle Brooks used to run over his girlfriend, the mother of his baby. It was a vehicle driven by a Black racist--yeah, they do exist--and a felon who was released on bail twice; once for $1,000 and once for $500. 

Now his bail is set at $5 million and we have to worry that morons like Rashida Tlaib and the rest of the squad don't try to raise the money to free his ass.

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Taliban hold parade in Kabul with Biden-provided weapons

Taliban's newest Black Hawk courtesy of President Joseph Robinette Biden
photo: Times of Israel

Taliban terrorists held a military parade and helicopter flyover in Kabul, Afghanistan on Sunday as they showed off the weaponry left behind by the United States due to the lightning retreat ordered by Joe Biden, or whoever is pulling his strings. Also on display were Russian helicopters, Humvees, armored vehicles, shoulder weapons and hundreds of proud testicles indicating theirs are bigger than Biden's and VP Harris' husband.

After two decades, the loss of blood and treasure, along with a commitment to our Afghan allies, the Biden-Harris administration left Afghanistan with their tails between their proverbial legs, leaving over a hundred Americans and thousands of Afghans who helped us fight their war and ours, behind. 

Those forces dissolved with the fleeing of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani from Afghanistan — leaving the Taliban to take over major military assets.

Many on the right say the Afghans didn't have the guts to fight for their own country, but the truth is, they were almost totally dependent on our support which ended when we left. 

Hut, hut hoe!

Some Afghans continued to fight, but it soon became obvious that it was a losing cause. Many were killed after they surrendered because the Taliban is composed of bloodthirsty terrorists who would kill just for sport, others who helped us and were left behind are in hiding.

The parade was linked to the graduation of 250 freshly trained terrorists, defense ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khwarazmi said, but used a different term to describe his marching scumcrumpets.

"Present . . . heads!"

Taliban officials have said that pilots, mechanics and other specialists from the former Afghan National Army would be integrated into a new force, because the Taliban forces are clueless and how to fly aircraft or repair them, because they're living in their collective head as if Mohammad is still having sex with his 9-year-old bride. [She was six when they married, but Mo was a gentleman and waited three years before he raped her.]

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Taliban jihadis have also started wearing conventional military uniforms in place of the traditional Afghan clothing normally worn by their fighters. Their decorative patches depict military-style beheadings of captors, the bombing of churches and schools, and one patch proudly depicts the stoning of a woman who forgot to wear a cloth coffin over her body.

Joe Biden has a lot to think about, but for Biden to think may be an insurmountable task. 

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Trump flirts with having a military parade: pros and cons

Washington -- Say what you want, but Americans love a parade. Especially parades like the Macy's Day Thanksgiving Parade or a parade when the hometown wins the big one. But military parades are not the same thing.

Do we really need to flex our muscles in front of a global mirror?

Short answer: maybe . . . maybe not.

Traditionally, the United States has had to world's most 'kick-buttiest' military, but we don't tend to flaunt it on the public streets of our cities--we let Russia, China and North Korea show off and hype their weaponry.

But since when does President Trump follow tradition? He has given a directive for the Pentagon to come up with options for a yooge military march to do what our rival nations do. However lawmakers and military brass are mulling over the purpose, the risk and the cost of putting on a really big show.

Both Democrats and Republicans have voiced concern and for good reason.
"People will wonder, 'Well, what are they afraid of now? What are they trying to prove?'" asks Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a woman with an impressive name who represents the District of Columbia in Congress. "We don't have to show off to make a point." 

You see, President Trump attended the Bastille Day celebration in Paris last July and it apparently gave him parade envy. The Washington Post wrote that he wants one too.

On one hand it's a "fantastic waste of money," as Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said. Another senator who calls himself a Republican, Lindsey Graham, told the Certainly Not News network that the parade risks being "kind of cheesy and a sign of weakness" if it's just about showing them that ours is bigger than theirs.

But Trump doesn't seem to care, in spite of his aides performing verbal calisthenics to downplay the idea that it was anything more than an idea he had "in a brainstorming session" for Americans to express gratitude and military pride. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said there has not been a final decision on the matter, and it's assumed the parade would cost millions.

"We've been putting together some options. We'll send them up to the White House for a decision," Defense Secretary James Mattis said. "The president's respect, his fondness for the military I think is reflected in his asking for these options."

On the "con side," there's the problem that heavy tanks and other armament would tear up the streets of D.C. under the tremendous weight. When Trump first suggested the idea to top aides aboard Air Force One after the Paris parade, staff discussed the best time to have it, but noted the tanks at the Bastille Day Parade tore up the city's pavement, throwing chunks of concrete as they moved along.

But President Trump dismissed the concern, according to one person who spoke on condition of anonymity because he or she may, or may not actually exist, but if he or she does, they don't want to get fired. The anonymous source said that Trump told them, "That's okay, we can fix the streets."

Holmes Norton told the Associated Press that she is taking steps to ensure that "if Trump wants a parade, he pays for it."

She probably didn't mean that Trump pay for it out of his own pocket, but out of federal tax money. Evidently Holmes Norton is a liberal who cannot differentiate between tax money and personal funds. In any case, she knows there's little hope of blocking a parade permit due to the problem she has with the existence of a U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment right to free assembly.

Another con: military strength is strongest when its power is inferred, not flaunted, like North Korea tends to do. "We have avoided doing this kind of display, in part to emphasize that contrast because this has been so commonplace in authoritarian countries," Julian Zelizer a presidential historian at Princeton University said. "For some presidents, it's sometimes a strategic act: Speak quietly while carrying a big stick," as President Theodore Roosevelt advised.

On the pro side: it's a way to venerate our troops. "I trust President Trump, Defense Department, Secretary Mattis to do it the right way, and do it in a way that makes sense and is cost effective," Jonny Havens, an Iraq war veteran said.

Which puts a new meaning on "bigger bang for your buck."

Maybe the country needs a parade, I suspect President Trump just likes the pomp and circumstance. The few million dollars it would cost is really comparable to pizza money in terms of the national budget.

The question is, do we really need it or will it just be another thing that further divides an already divided nation?

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old soldier

old soldier
Originally uploaded by Rob Hoey

Thasneem, Vidhya and I found ourselves in the midst of a huge crowd on Remembrance Day, November 11th. We were simply planning on showing Vidhya the town but when we saw what was going on, we had to be part of is--especially since I brought Steve, my Nikon D300 camera along for the ride.

It was a huge event, and I suspect there were tens of thousands of spectators, and there was a flyover by a few jets and some older planes like Mustangs, and the like. I mostly got to see the backs of people's heads as we were buried in the crowd (next year I'll go earlier), and I felt proud to be a part of this town where it was obvious, that people took very good care of their hair, and I couldn't find even one case of dandruff in the crowd.

There were speeches and a 21 gun cannon salute, which was quite moving and quite loud. There were wreaths from many countries, businesses and even local schools, laid at the tomb of the Unknown. I became a bit nostalgic, thinking of my own Marine Corps days, and how glad I was to make it home from Vietnam in one piece. War sucks, but sometimes it is the only way to defend our country. I worry about the world of today. I think the west is handing over our land to people who don't deserve what we worked so hard to get and to keep. I think the west is asleep at the wheel and it isn't funny, like it was in the movie Vacation, when Chevy Chase woke up in the car from a deep sleep, and he realized that he was still driving. I hope the west remembers that Israel is a better country than any of those tyrants who would want it destroyed. I hope Obama changes his thinking about Islam being a religion of peace and sees it for what it is and what it is doing.

Lastly, I hope someday we'll have world peace, but I don't think that's going to be for a long long time.