The victims of the 2022 Highland Park parade shooting will be allowed to watch the trial of the alleged shooter. NBC Chicago’s Charlie Wojciechowski reports.
Victims of the Fourth of July parade shooting in Highland Park will be allowed to attend the full duration of the trial, a judge ruled Thursday.
Potential witnesses are typically excluded from being inside the courtroom until after they testify. However, Judge Victoria Rosetti's ruling allows victims to be present in court the entire time, even if they are scheduled to testify later in the trial.
"For the victims and our clients, for them to be there, to have this cathartic experience of watching a whole trial was extremely important," said Antonio Romanucci, an attorney representing several victims and their families in the lawsuit.
The judge's Thursday ruling came during the final hearing ahead of the trial, scheduled to start next week.
Robert Crimo III is facing more than 100 charges, including 21 counts of first-degree murder, for the shooting in Highland Park that killed seven and wounded 48.
Crimo III would face a mandatory sentence of life without parole if convicted of first-degree murder.
He did not speak during the hearing Thursday and said he did not have anything to say to the families of the victims as he walked out of the courtroom.
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Jury selection for the trial is scheduled to start at 9 a.m. Monday. Many victims and their families plan to attend the trial, Romanucci said.
"They have a choice to be there and experience what happened through the eyes and lens of a courtroom, as opposed to not being there at all," Romanucci said.
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The case proceeded slowly and faced multiple delays over the past two years.
In December 2023, Crimo III insisted he wanted to fire his public defenders and represent himself. He abruptly reversed that decision weeks later.
Crimo III later backed out of a plea deal that would have meant the alleged gunman pleaded guilty to 55 charges -- seven counts of first-degree murder and 48 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm -- while all remaining charges against him would have been dismissed.
He now pleads not guilty to all charges, including multiple first-degree murder counts.
Authorities have said the accused gunman confessed to police in the days after he opened fire from a rooftop in Highland Park, an affluent North Shore suburb along Lake Michigan that is home to approximately 30,000 people. They said he initially fled to the Madison, Wisconsin, area and contemplated a second shooting at a parade there but returned to Chicago’s northern suburbs.
Crimo III, a resident of nearby Highwood, legally purchased the rifle, according to authorities. But he first applied for a state gun license in 2019 when he was 19, too young to apply independently in Illinois.
His father sponsored the application, though police reports show that months earlier a relative reported to police that Crimo III had threatened to "kill everyone" and had made several threats to kill himself.
Crimo III’s father, Robert Crimo Jr., accepted a deal in November 2023 to plead guilty to seven misdemeanor reckless conduct counts – one for each person his son is accused of killing. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail but was released early for good behavior in December 2023.
Crimo Jr. was in court Thursday supporting his son, as he has during past court appearances.
Those killed in the attack were Katherine Goldstein, 64; Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63; Stephen Straus, 88; Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78; Eduardo Uvaldo, 69; and married couple Kevin McCarthy, 37, and Irina McCarthy, 35.
Dozens of people were wounded, including an 8-year-old boy who was left partially paralyzed. All of the victims were from the Highland Park area except for Toledo-Zaragoza, who was visiting family in the city from Morelos, Mexico.
