July 4 parade shooting suspect slipped past Illinois "red flag" safeguards

The man charged with killing seven people at a Chicago-area July Fourth parade slipped past the safeguards of an Illinois "red flag" law designed to prevent people deemed to have violent tendencies from getting guns, officials revealed on Tuesday.

The disclosures raised questions about the adequacy of the state's "red flag" laws even as a prosecutor lauded the system as "strong" during a news conference announcing seven first-degree murder charges against the 21-year-old suspect, Robert, E. Crimo III.

Sergeant Chris Covelli of the Lake County Sheriff's Office said earlier in the day that Crimo had legally purchased a total of five guns, including the suspected murder weapon, despite having come to law enforcement's attention twice for behavior suggesting he might harm himself or others.

The first instance was an April 2019 emergency-911 call reporting Crimo had attempted suicide, followed in September of that year by a police visit regarding alleged threats "to kill everyone" that he had directed at family members, Covelli said.