Awake the Rapper: Highland Park Shooting, Charges, and Sentencing

“Awake the Rapper” was the online alias of Robert Crimo III, the gunman who opened fire on the Highland Park, Illinois, Fourth of July parade in 2022. He killed seven people, wounded dozens more, and in April 2025 was sentenced to seven consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. The name came from the word “Awake” tattooed above his left eye, and he used it across music platforms and social media where he had been posting violent imagery for years before the attack.¹

The Highland Park Parade Shooting

On the morning of July 4, 2022, Crimo, then 21, climbed a fire escape ladder attached to a building at the corner of Central Avenue and 2nd Street in downtown Highland Park to reach the rooftop.² He wore a dress and a long-haired wig as a disguise. At 10:14 a.m., he opened fire on the crowd below, unleashing more than 70 rounds from a high-powered rifle into the parade route.³

Seven people were killed: Katherine Goldstein, 64; Irina McCarthy, 35; Kevin McCarthy, 37; Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63; Stephen Straus, 88; Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78; and Eduardo Uvaldo, 69.⁴ At least 48 others were wounded.⁵

Crimo left the rifle on the rooftop and fled. A multi-agency manhunt involved the Lake County Major Crime Task Force, the FBI, the ATF, and the Illinois State Police. At 6:30 p.m. that evening, a North Chicago police officer spotted him driving on Route 41 near Buckley Road. After a brief pursuit, he was taken into custody without incident near Westleigh Road in Lake Forest. A second firearm was found in his vehicle.³

Who “Awake the Rapper” Was Online

Crimo built an extensive online presence around the “Awake the Rapper” persona. He posted music to Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music, and ran a Discord server for fans. Before the shooting, he had roughly 16,000 to 16,500 monthly listeners on Spotify.⁶

His content was saturated with violent imagery. At least two of his music videos depicted mass shootings. One animated clip showed a young man in tactical gear with an assault-style rifle shooting people, set to the refrain “Living the dream, nothing’s real.”¹ Another showed Crimo in an empty classroom reaching into a backpack before appearing in a helmet and tactical vest, scattering bullets across the floor. A separate video featured him rapping with an image of Lee Harvey Oswald on the wall behind him.⁶ Ten months before the shooting, he posted footage that appeared to show a portion of the Highland Park parade route set to music with a death theme.⁷

Beyond the music, Crimo was active on at least nine social media platforms.⁷ Under the handle “Awake47,” he was a frequent contributor to Documenting Reality, a forum dedicated to graphic real-life footage of violence and death, where he posted thousands of times.¹ On Discord, he shared a photo of Pennsylvania state treasurer Budd Dwyer, who died by suicide on live television, with a caption expressing admiration for the act.⁸ Jared Holt, a researcher at the Atlantic Council, said after the shooting that Crimo had “a history online of glorifying and fantasizing about violence.”

Following the shooting, Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube removed Crimo’s accounts and content. Discord, Twitter, and Instagram also scrubbed his profiles.⁹

The 2019 Warnings and How He Got the Gun

Crimo had two encounters with Highland Park police in 2019. In April, officers responded to a report of a suicide attempt involving a machete. In September, a family member called police after Crimo threatened to “kill everyone” in the home. Officers confiscated 16 knives, a 12-inch dagger, and a 24-inch sword from his bedroom, and Highland Park police filed a “clear and present danger” report with the Illinois State Police, identifying Crimo as someone who posed an imminent threat if given access to firearms.¹⁰

None of that stopped him from getting a gun. Because Crimo did not have a Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card or a pending application at the time of the September 2019 report, the Illinois State Police discarded the filing. Under the agency’s administrative rules at the time, it was not permitted to maintain records on individuals who were not already in the FOID system.¹¹ When Crimo applied for a FOID card in December 2019, with his father sponsoring the application because he was under 21, his background check turned up only a minor tobacco-related ordinance violation from 2016. The ISP approved the application.¹⁰ Between 2020 and 2021, he legally purchased several firearms, including the rifle used in the attack.¹²

The ISP later gave conflicting justifications. On July 5, 2022, the agency said no action was taken in 2019 because Crimo lacked a FOID card. The next day, it said a reviewing officer had concluded there was “insufficient information” for a clear-and-present-danger determination.¹¹ ISP Director Brendan Kelly also noted that the threats were considered “secondhand” since Crimo denied intending harm when officers questioned him.¹³

The Father’s Guilty Plea

Crimo’s father, Robert Crimo Jr., signed the affidavit sponsoring the 2019 FOID application despite knowledge of the September 2019 threats and the earlier suicide attempt. A grand jury indicted him in February 2023. On November 6, 2023, he pleaded guilty to seven counts of misdemeanor reckless conduct, one for each person killed, after original felony charges were downgraded as part of a plea deal. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail and two years of probation, and was required to surrender his own FOID card and all firearms. He also agreed never to sponsor another minor for a FOID card. Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said the father’s decision to sign the application “endangered lives” and “enabled” the shooting.¹⁴

Charges, Guilty Plea, and Trial Reversal

A Lake County grand jury indicted Crimo on July 27, 2022, on 117 counts: 21 counts of first-degree murder (three for each victim), 48 counts of attempted murder, and 48 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm.¹⁵ He initially pleaded not guilty.

The case went through more than two years of proceedings marked by erratic behavior. In June 2024, Crimo appeared to have reached a plea agreement, but he rejected it during the hearing, reportedly surprising his own lawyers. He arrived in a wheelchair and refused the deal, which would have allowed victims and their families the chance to address him. He then fired his public defenders, briefly attempted to represent himself, then reversed course. In the days before trial, he sometimes refused to leave his jail cell for court appearances.¹⁶

Jury selection proceeded, and opening statements were scheduled for March 3, 2025. That morning, prosecutors and defense attorneys were called to Judge Victoria Rossetti’s chambers over an issue with a seated juror, who was excused and replaced with an alternate. After that, Crimo’s attorneys announced that he intended to change his plea.¹⁷ Prosecutors dropped the 48 counts of aggravated battery, and Crimo entered an open guilty plea to the remaining 69 counts: 21 counts of first-degree murder and 48 counts of attempted murder.¹⁶ The plea carried no negotiated sentence recommendation. Rinehart said his office had not engaged in any plea negotiations after Crimo rejected the earlier deal and that Crimo “received nothing” in return.

Sentencing and Where He Is Now

The sentencing hearing took place over two days, April 23 and 24, 2025, at the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan. Crimo, 24 at the time, did not appear in court for either day.¹⁸

Survivors and victims’ relatives delivered impact statements. Leah Sundheim, daughter of Jacquelyn Sundheim, told Crimo he had “thrown the balance of this world off” and said, “I hope you wake in the middle of the night, gasping air you don’t deserve.”¹⁸ Dr. Keely Roberts, mother of Cooper Roberts, an eight-year-old boy paralyzed in the shooting, addressed Crimo directly: “You and I have just one thing in common. You and I are both going to be serving life sentences without parole.”¹⁹ Survivor Marcia Moran, testifying via video, said she had been in therapy for more than two years and declared, “The shooter doesn’t get to take anything more from me.”

Judge Rossetti described Crimo as “irretrievably depraved, permanently incorrigible, irreparably corrupt and beyond any rehabilitation” and noted his “complete disregard for human life.”¹⁹ She sentenced him to seven consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole for the murders, plus 50 years for each of the 48 attempted murder counts, to be served concurrently with one another but consecutively to the life sentences.²⁰ Rinehart said that for all his planning, Crimo “has never shown one bit of remorse.”

The day after sentencing, Crimo was transferred to Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois.²¹ By May 2025, he no longer appeared in the Illinois Department of Corrections online inmate database. State prison officials confirmed he had been transferred under the Interstate Corrections Compact but declined to disclose his location, citing safety concerns.²²

1
NPR. Highland Park Suspect’s Online History Reveals a Fascination With Violence
2
NBC Chicago. Police Release New Details on How Highland Park Parade Shooting Unfolded
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WGN-TV. Highland Park Fourth of July Parade Shooting Timeline of Events
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ABC News. Victims of the July 4th Highland Park Parade Shooting
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ABC 7 Chicago. Highland Park Victims Mass Shooting Illinois Parade
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ABC News. Robert Bobby Crimo III Suspect Highland Park Parade
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ABC 7 Chicago. Highland Park Suspect Robert Crimo III Social Media
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NBC News. Chicago Shooting Person of Interest Left Online Trail of Violent Imagery
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Digital Music News. Spotify Apple Music Remove Shooter Account
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ABC News. Police Determined Highland Park Shooting Suspect Posed Clear and Present Danger
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Capitol News Illinois. State Police Questioned Over Handling of Report on Alleged Highland Park Shooter
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Courthouse News Service. Illinois Governor Makes It Easier for Police to Reject Gun Licenses
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ABC 7 Chicago. Highland Park Shooting Illinois State Police FOID Card Application
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NBC News. Father of Highland Park Parade Shooter Pleads Guilty to Reckless Conduct Charges
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ABC 7 New York. Highland Park Shooter Robert Crimo III Indictment
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IPM Newsroom. Robert E. Crimo III Pleads Guilty to Murder and Attempted Murder
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WTTW News. Highland Park Parade Gunman Pleads Guilty to Murder Attempted Murder Charges
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ABC News. Highland Park Shooter Robert Crimo III Sentenced
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Fox 32 Chicago. Robert Crimo Sentence Highland Park Parade Shooting
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CBS News Chicago. Highland Park Parade Shooter Sentencing Day 2
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ABC 7 Chicago. Highland Park Parade Shooting Robert Crimo III Transferred to Stateville Prison
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Chicago Sun-Times. Larry Hoover Robert Crimo III Have Illinois Prison Sentences to Serve but Where