In the Highland Park suburb of Chicago, the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band set a celebratory tone for the families who lined Central Avenue for the affluent and heavily Jewish neighbourhood’s first 4th July parade in three years. Expectations were high after Covid had deprived them of the opportunity to celebrate for so long.

But the revelry was shattered suddenly as shots rang out: a gunman, dressed as a woman and perched on a nearby rooftop sprayed the crowd below with gunfire.

Families with their children fled in panic past the klezmer band, who played on, for a few moments unaware of the horror that was unfolding.

Aiden McCarthy who lost his parents at Illnois Shooting

Aiden McCarthy, who lost both of his parents in the Illinois shooting

Michla Schanowitz and her husband Yosef founded the synagogue on Central Avenue in 1980. She was joining in with the parade when the attack began.

She told the JC: “The parade had just started and then it turned to total chaos. I mean, people were just running and running up the hill from where the shooter was. The parade goes right in front of the shul, Beit Chabad.

“The people are lined up on both sides of the streets, and actually, there were some horses that were part of the parade. I thought, ‘This is crazy. People are running in front of these huge horses, why are they running?’ And then I realised that everybody was running. People were just…”

Mrs Schanowitz broke off, and then continued: “The chaos. People leaving their stuff, their umbrellas, their chairs, their blankets, and suddenly started yelling, ‘There’s an active shooter.’”
A two-year-old boy was found bloodied and alone. Aiden McCarthy’s parents Kevin McCarthy, 37, and Irina McCarthy, 35 had brought him to the parade, only to be gunned down leaving him orphaned and lost.

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An abandoned fold-up chair on the street in the aftermath of the shooting

Irina is believed to be from a Russian Jewish family and had arrived in Illinois as a child. It is thought that her family will now care for Aiden in the short-term.
Donations have flooded into a GoFundMe page set up to provide for his future.

Organiser Irina Colon wrote: “At two years old, Aiden is left in the unthinkable position; to grow up without his parents.

“Aiden will be cared for by his loving family and he will have a long road ahead to heal, find stability, and ultimately navigate life as an orphan.”
Nearly $2million has been raised so far.

Michla Schanowitz’s husband Yosef was in the synagogue nearby as the attack began. His mind immediately turned to the four Yeshiva boys who had arrived earlier that day to run a teffilin stand in the parade.

synagogue Beit Chabad

Synagogue Beit Chabad

“We had four high-school Chabad guys who flew in from New York this morning,” he said later that day. “They study in Chicago, but they were in New York for the Rebbie’s Yarzheit. They came to man a table on the parade route, a table with Jewish info. So I’m obviously responsible for them.

“I was in my office working and then my wife called me. She said the parade was cancelled, but she didn’t tell me why. I immediately felt a fright for these four high school kids. I went out there and a lady said to me, you better get them out of here because there has been a shooting. I made sure that they were inside.”

Mendy Zalmanov, 17, one of the four boys, explained the confusion and chaos: “All of a sudden we see people and police cars going the opposite way of the parade, and some fire trucks, and then we see everyone, the whole crowd, running towards their cars getting their kids and running away.

“There were some last people that were still outside. We were right outside the Chabad House. The rabbi came out, told us what had happened and told us we should stay inside.”

Rabbi Yosef Schanowicz

Rabbi Yosef Schanowicz

Michla had the keys to the synagogue with her: “We keep the shul locked, of course. I mean, we’re right on a main street and we had a hate crime call with a threat a few years ago. Because we’re on a main street, we’re very security conscious.”

Throwing aside the usual security concerns, Michla opened up the synagogue for people fleeing the shooting.

“I opened the doors of the shul, the Beit Chabad, and I told people to just come inside. Just people trying to get into shelter.”

Speaking from the safety of her home, she said: “It’s really, really, really, really tragic. People have died already. People are wounded. It’s just unfathomable. It’s heart-wrenching. This is a beautiful, safe, upscale suburb. This shouldn’t be happening in our country.”

Once the Yeshiva boys were safely in the synagogue, Rabbi Schanowitz arranged for them to go to the home of Lifsha and Rabbi Dovid Weissman, 33 and 34. They had been staying there while they were in town.

“I love hosting these Yeshiva students and their friends,” Lifsha explained as she welcomed them in. “Sometimes we have 15 guys for Shabbat sleeping over. The community loves when they join, they bring such light and joy.

“My husband greeted the boys as they fled to our home for shelter. They all, including my husband and our two young sons, just spent the weekend in New York at the resting place of the Lubavitcher Rebbe commemorating 28 years since his passing.”

Another of the boys, Dovber Yarmov, 17, explained that while they were away from their families, they felt safe with the Weissmans. “Really all Jews are family. So we’re here with this family, which is hosting us right now. And we’re all one big family.” The Weissmans have lived in Highland Park for many years. Dovid was born in Highland Park Hospital just 15 minutes’ walk from their home, where two dozen casualties from the shooting were taken.

Lifsha said: “He was raised here, his grandparents still live in Highland Park in the same home they bought 50-plus years ago. It’s an extremely Jewishly dense populated area.”

Once he had ensured the safety of the four boys, Rabbi Schanowitz headed for the Highland Park hospital, where he visited the victims as a volunteer chaplain. Immediately after his visit he explained: “Before Covid I went there regularly, but then with Covid there were restrictions. I went there today and the nurses were happy that I came and I went from door to door.

“I wished everyone well. There were a number of non-Jews who I visited. I prayed that God bless them. There was a woman whose son was being airlifted and so I tried to comfort people as much as I can. And that was it. There were a few Jews I met along the way, but there was one room where they told me the person had expired.”

Though the crowds had fled, the gunman was still at large. Having climbed onto the roof of a local shop to carry out his brutal attack using a fire escape ladder, he managed to blend in immediately with the crowds as he left the scene.

Police identified Robert E Crimo III as a person of interest, pursuing him from then on. An aspiring rapper, Crimo is the son of a local businessman who had unsuccessfully run to be the local mayor.

His videos and songs posted to social media platforms showed disturbing images and drawings, including a cartoon animation of a gunman carrying out an attack with a rifle, and subsequently lying in a pool of his own blood, surrounded by police. In one video called Are You Awake, he appears as a cartoon, complete with his facial tattoos, apparently carrying out an attack with a gun. “I need to just do it. It is my destiny,” he says.

Crimo had dressed as a woman to carry out the attack, relying on a long-haired wig to help him cover his distinctive facial tattoos which otherwise made him easily identifiable.

He had legally purchased the weapon he used in the shooting, according to Chris Covelli, spokesperson for the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force. The high-powered rifle which shot high-velocity rounds, similar to an AR-15, was purchased locally and was one of at least five guns Crimo had bought.

Immediately after the attack, Crimo went to his mother’s house, from where he took her car and headed north. Police released details of the 2010 Silver Honda Fit they were searching for, and before long a north Chicago officer spotted the vehicle and began the efforts to pull him over.

A police chase ensued, with Crimo heading back to the south. On Westleigh and US Highway 41 southbound in Lake Forest, the authorities managed to catch up with him and the arrest was made. Highway 41 was shut down and canine units were brought in.

Searching the vehicle, the police found another gun. Both of these weapons and others found in his home were traced, revealing that they had been purchased legally by the now 21-year-old. His father had originally sponsored his application for a Firearm Owner’s Identification card because he was under 21 at the time.

Booby Crimo 2

The gunman Robert Crimo, dressed as a woman, caught on camera

Meanwhile, an armoured truck had arrived in front of the house just north of Highland Park which Crimo shared with his father and Uncle. He lived in a flat to the side of the property.

When the FBI first got there his father was in the house and was confronted by police. The street was cordoned off, and officers started to search his belongings. Immediately after the arrest was made, FBI agents were seen leaving the home with bags of evidence.

Arriving home later that day, Crimo’s uncle told US television news: “I’m heartbroken. I can’t even believe it. I pray for all the families who got injured and hurt. I had no idea, no clue at all. There was no indication at all. No indication that I’d seen at all. Last time I saw him was five o’clock yesterday, and I said hi and bye to him.”

Meanwhile, round the corner from Crimo’s house, people were told to stay indoors.
“They are around the corner from my house,” explained Michla Schanowitz. “I came over to my house. My whole street is blocked off. They have a SWAT team. ABC News is here. They have dogs, that police car, they’re in a house questioning somebody. That’s what my neighbour told me. I’m sitting in this house. I’m not going outside.”

Lifsha Weissman was on the phone to the JC when Crimo was caught: “My husband said they just caught the suspect,” she said. “My kids are very relieved they caught him, they were scared to go to school tomorrow.”

The shock of the attack was made worse for many by the realisation that Crimo was a local. “He lives around the corner from us,” Lifsha said with despair.
“We pass his house every day, multiple times a day, on our way to shul or school.”

Michla Schanowitz feels the same: “I pass it every day,” she said. “Every day. It’s around the corner. I have to walk this block. My house is the corner house. I have to walk this block to get to shul every day, or to get to the grocery.

“It’s a horrible vulnerability that you could think you’re sitting around peacefully with community members but somebody among you wants to perpetrate evil. The only thing we can do is increase goodness and kindness and light.”

Law enforcement has not yet established a motive for Crimo’s blood-thirsty attack. But Highland Park is a very Jewish city; around a third of its 30,000 inhabitants are Jewish. Several of those injured and killed have been identified as Jews.

At least three of the seven dead were Jewish: Stephen Strauss, 88, Jacki Sundheim, 63 and Irina McCarthy, 35. Reports that Crimo had been seen in Rabbi Schanowitz’s Central Avenue synagogue last Passover might also suggest the possibility he had been monitoring the local Jewish community.

Schanowitz told the JC that he didn’t want to comment, but that the synagogue regularly has off-duty, armed policemen at the services, who are concealed licensed gun carriers: “If somebody suspicious is there, there are two people behind the guy just in case,” he said.