It was August 2017, and the long-haired, awkward Crimo described how Anthony was one of the only people he could trust. he would always answer,” Crimo says in a video of the memorial service reviewed by The Daily Beast. “And he was always free to hang out whenever I was with him. I felt like I wasn’t alone anymore, like I had someone there, like they were actually there,” she added. “There were so many nights we would just keep walking because we both could never sleep and our conversations would be so deep. I really loved Antonis. He was a very good friend,” Crimo told the congregation. Now Rebollar is struggling with how a quiet child who spent time at the Highland Park skatepark with her sons could have committed such a monstrous crime, one that took the lives of two parents to a young child, the lives of grandparents and of mothers. The shooting affected her personally. He knows people who were killed in the parade. And she’s friends with a man, Alexander Sandoval, who hid his son in a dumpster during the chaos of the shooting. “His son now can’t sleep and has night terrors,” she said. Rebollar didn’t want to talk about Crimo at first, but she also doesn’t want her son’s name dragged through the mud as the only friend of a mass shooter. “It broke my heart that my son, who was the kindest spirit in the world, who would have carried a bug out of the house instead of killing it…that it would somehow be connected in some way, shape or form [to Crimo] it’s just horrible.” “Because he would never do that to anybody,” Rebollar said. “She probably loved Bobby and probably did everything she could for him.” After reviewing the video of Crimo talking about Anthony, Rebollar believes it shows Crimo’s state of mind five years ago. “It’s kind of emotional and I don’t want to touch a mass murderer, you know?” he said. “It’s horrible. There’s no excuse, she could have had help, she could have told someone, but if you never had someone to tell, how do you know who to tell if no one was ever there for you?’ Anthony LaPorte and Michele Rebollar
Courtesy of Michele Rebollar
He believes much of Crimo’s online presence, which included disturbing social media posts and rap songs, was more recent. “So what happened between then and now?” he said. “If you get to the point where you want to kill people in your hometown, where you learned to skateboard, like what happened?” However, Rebollar was surprised when Crimo shared words at Anthony’s service. She realized that Anthony, who had mental health issues himself and had an easy compassion for others, attracted people who didn’t have many friends or were lonely. “That was the person that Anthony was, so a lot of people might have thought of Anthony as one of their only true friends,” Rebollar said. “I’m sure Bobby had some very deep moments with Anthony. Because everyone did.” Crimo stopped spending time with her family after Anthony died of a drug overdose, and Crimo lost touch with her other sons after high school. But when they were young, they hung out at the local skate park, Sunset Park, he said. “When Anthony died, he was probably the only person who [Crimo] he could really be honest with his thoughts, because Anthony also suffered a lot of thoughts that he didn’t like, annoying thoughts that he wasn’t comfortable with. That’s how he understood. If somebody else came up to him, you know, they might as well push him away or, you know, stop him from doing what he did,” Rebollar said. “He could have had help, he could have told somebody.” Looking back, Rebollar says, she wonders if she should have reached out to Crimo more. He was quieter than the other kids, and in her experience, teenage boys or pre-adolescent boys aren’t usually that quiet. Rebollar’s family is shocked that Crimo made national news for senselessly shooting innocent people. Anthony’s brother, Andres Christopher Lopez, told the Daily Beast that his group of friends, which included Crimo at some points, would spend hours skateboarding outside a local Dairy Queen. “He was just the quiet one,” Lopez said. “Maybe the jerk. But he was never anything but a happy child.” “So hearing about it now, it blows my mind,” Lopez added. “When I think of him, I don’t think of the tattoos on his face and the gun in his hand. I think about the kid I used to skateboard with.’ Rebollar noted that the affluent community of Highland Park and nearby Highwood, where she lives, is like one big community with a rich-poor divide, which she says also translates into a white-Hispanic divide. As a single mother raising four children, her family did not have many resources. And while Bobby wasn’t destitute—his dad owned a popular deli in town—he seemed to hang out with the teenagers who didn’t have as much wealth and privilege. “How can you have any kind of empathy for Bobby? You think about all the victims and how can you feel bad?’ asked. “I don’t feel bad about his future. I believe he will get what he deserves.” But Rebollar says she knows what it’s like to be judged in the community, having lost a child to a drug overdose and another child recently to suicide, and she thinks about how Crimo’s parents will be “forever judged” by their town. Former high school classmates painted a different picture of Crimo in recent days. They told The Daily Beast that he was disruptive and defiant in class and often tried to push his rap music to fellow students. “There were a lot of red flags with him,” a former Highland Park High School classmate said Tuesday. “I told my teacher I didn’t want to sit next to him. It really scared me.” Ethan Absler, another classmate, said Krimo seemed to have “behavioral red flags” and was “reserved and somewhat mysterious.” “There were definitely behavioral red flags with him, nothing that said this kid is angry or dangerous or violent or a shooter or anything like that,” Absler told the Daily Beast, “but something where you think the kid is weird or whatever it has. some problems with behavior or authority’. Absler said Crimo will be interrupting classes with his Soundcloud offerings. She was once suspended, Absler added, for printing stickers with the rap logo and placing them around the school in hard-to-reach areas. Absler almost attended his hometown’s Fourth of July parade, but backed out because his 11-year-old brother didn’t feel like going. Like other residents, he is still shocked by the bloodshed. “Everybody in this country is desensitized to the words ‘He’ll never come to your town’ and the words ‘mass shootings’ and things like that,” Absler said. “Highland Park is so scenic and safe. We used to leave our doors unlocked and laugh at the idea that any kind of violent crime is a possibility and now I just feel ignorant thinking about it.” During a bond hearing Wednesday, authorities revealed that Crimo allegedly confessed to orchestrating Monday’s mass shooting and that he was “seriously considering” carrying out a second attack soon after in Madison, Wisconsin. While the motive for Crimo’s heinous spree has yet to be revealed, Assistant District Attorney Ben Dillon said Crimo told investigators he “dressed up like a girl and covered his tattoos with makeup” to avoid recognition as he opened fire from the roof of a business. overlooking the parade route. After the spree, Crimo said the Smith and Wesson M&P 15 used to carry out the attack accidentally fell out of the backpack — a mistake authorities say was critical to finding Crimo. At a press conference after the hearing, Lake County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Christopher Covelli also revealed that the 21-year-old alleged killer “had some sort of affinity with the ‘4’ and ‘7,’ numbers that are etched on Crimo’s face . , and noted that it “obviously comes from some music he’s interested in.” — with additional reporting by Pilar Melendez
