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The parents of Highland Park Fourth of July shooting suspect Robert "Bobby" Crimo III had a long list of encounters with law enforcement — involving many domestic disputes, bizarre complaints and allegations of other men pursuing the mother romantically, Illinois police records show.
Before their son was accused of opening fire on an Independence Day celebration Monday, killing at least seven and wounding dozens more, Highland Park police had 51 pages of incident reports related to their home.
The couple often traded barbs and called police on one another as their son was growing up, the documents show. Denise Pesina, his mother, told officers her husband "threatens to call police for any and every argument we get in. He wants the police to think I’m crazy."
The father, Robert "Bob" Crimo Jr., once wrote in a witness statement that he wanted a police report explaining that his wife "was not feeling well from her hormones being out of line."
A photo combination of alleged July 4 shooter's parents, Bob Crimo and Denise Pesina. (Facebook)
Officers noted on several occasions that Pesina gave them contradictory statements — but many encounters were resolved with Crimo leaving for the night.
Police referred one case to the state’s attorney’s office in 2010 after Crimo told police that his wife "hit him with a screwdriver" and scratched his arm after "a few minutes of her trash talking." He also complained she "clotheslined" his dresser and knocked his belongings to the floor before removing the lock on the bedroom door.
He left the screwdriver out of his written statement, and prosecutors ultimately declined charges.
HIGHLAND PARK FOURTH OF JULY PARADE ATTACK: ARE PARENTS OF ALLEGED GUNMAN CULPABLE?
Robert "Bobby" Crimo III poses for a booking photo at a jail in Lake County, Illinois, after allegedly shooting dozens of people at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park. (AP/handout from Lake County Major Crime Task Force)
In Pesina’s statement on the same incident, she said her husband came home that night "very irate" and "making mean statements to me like always."
HIGHLAND PARK JULY 4TH SHOOTING SUSPECT'S PARENTS WERE ‘A PROBLEM,' SAYS FORMER COACH
"I am tired of being called names and not having a place to sleep of my own in eight years," she wrote. "He sleeps in the bed only."
READ THE REPORTS:
They called police on each other frequently, often to report issues including verbal arguments, midday intoxication and unwanted encounters with neighbors at their suburban home outside Chicago. One call came simply to report roadkill on their street.
The documents appear to support the accounts of former neighbors and Crimo III's onetime coach, who told Fox News Digital Tuesday that the parents had issues and police were often seen outside the family home.
"I remember the parents more than him because they were kind of a problem," recalled Jeremy Cahnmann, who ran an afterschool sports program at Lincoln Elementary School. "There wasn't a lot of love in that family."
On several occasions, police asked the elder Crimo to leave the home for the night, or he left voluntarily. One incident report indicates they arrested him at least once, on Dec. 29, 2010.
HIGHLAND PARK 4TH OF JULY SHOOTING PERSON OF INTEREST: WHO IS ROBERT CRIMO?
One night in November 2011, Crimo called police on his neighbor, who he said "stopped by his house to give his wife…a bottle of wine." A few days later, Pesina called police because "she felt uncomfortable exiting her vehicle due to romantic interest that William Hollander has shown her in the past."
The reports also mention a man who told police he was Pesina’s "boyfriend." David Daniels was also identified as a former roommate who on at least one occasion was driven by police from the home to a Starbucks following a domestic violence call in which an unspecified male caller told police a woman bit him and caused bleeding.
Daniels called police to the Crimo home at least twice, in one case telling police he "thinks his girlfriend was hit by husband, possibly, earlier."
Pesina told police on multiple occasions that Daniels is "mentally ill" and disputed his claims.
HIGHLAND PARK FOURTH OF JULY SHOOTING: A TIMELINE OF EVENTS
In a video feed from the Lake County, Ill., jail, Robert E. Crimo III appears before Lake County Judge Theodore Potkonjak in his initial court appearance Wednesday, July 6, 2022, in Waukegan, Ill. Crimo is accused of killing seven people during a mass shooting during a July 4 parade in Highland Park, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, Pool)
Officers on multiple occasions gave the couple domestic violence packets and encouraged them to either seek counseling or split up.
The Crimo parents’ legal troubles extended beyond domestic calls. Both have numerous traffic offenses, including a 2012 DUI against Pesina and a 2002 child welfare case that got her a year of probation.
In another incident, she claimed to be the victim of identity theft after she said someone used a credit card in her name to rack up $700 in charges in Chicago.
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Crimo Jr. was also cited more than once for selling tobacco and alcohol to minors through his now-defunct deli, Bob’s Pantry.
And their son, the suspected Fourth of July gunman, was previously cited for underage tobacco possession and theft from a Macy’s store, which resulted in a no contact order blocking him from revisiting the retailer.
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