A mass shooting at a 4th of July parade has left six people dead and many more wounded. AP. The attack occurred at the Chicago suburb of Highland Park. The attacker fired on the parade from an elevated position. The suspect has been named as Robert E. Crimo III, who was arrested some time after the shooting. Police do not know what the motive for the shooting is at this time.
My Comment:
I have a long standing rule that I don't like talking about mass shooters unless I have something important to say. I have long believed that media coverage of these attacks almost always inspire new attacks and I try to not contribute to the problem as much as possible. But in this case I think the circumstances of the case are worth discussing.
I have seen some video from the shooting and what shocks me isn't the shooting it's peoples reaction to it. Most people were standing around doing nothing as the shooter opened up. It was pretty obvious to me that it was a man rapid firing a rifle but people did not react to it until people closer to the shooting started to run. It's crazy to me, I know it is the 4th of July but there is a pretty obvious difference between a long series of gun shots and fireworks.
The fact that the suspect was able to get away for a time is also fairly disturbing. Police were in the area but they weren't near the place the shooter was shooting from and as far as I can tell nobody shot back. That's a failure by the police as far as I am concerned. This attacker, had he planned just a little better, might have been able to get away with this attack and perhaps stage another one. It does seem like he ran out of ammo and left his rifle behind though, which indicates he probably wasn't thinking of continuing his attack.
People are already calling for gun control because of this incident but aren't likely to point out that Highland Park and Illinois already have extreme gun control even by the standards of blue states. So called "assault weapons" and standard capacity magazines are banned in Highland Park. Clearly these extreme gun laws did nothing to stop the attacker from shooting dozens of people.
There is a lot of speculation about the attacker, a Robert E. Crimo III, political affiliation is and what his motive was. Having seen his social media posts I have to come to the conclusion that he was just a troll. There is evidence for him being either a conservative or a liberal and to be honest much of it seems like Crimo was just messing with people;.
Crimo is a tattooed mumble rapper that posted himself wearing an FBI hat and talked about MKUltra . He attended Trump events but also claimed to be a leftist and has some pro-antifa posts. He followed Democrats on Twitter but was also shown wearing a Trump flag as a cape. When he went to the Trump event he was wearing a "Where's Waldo" costume. His dad ran as a Democrat candidate for Mayor in Highland Park. None of this makes any sense.
My guess is he is actually politically unaffiliated and was just trolling everyone. The fact that he was wearing an FBI hat and then committed a mass shooting makes me think that he was pretty tuned into online culture. Both the left wing and right wing accuse the FBI of grooming mass shooters, with some good evidence of that happening, so it's a pretty obvious shout out to that belief, though I doubt he was groomed himself. I am guessing that he is laughing at everyone blaming the other political side for this attack while he hates both sides.
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