Experts say case against father of alleged Highland Park shooter is unusual, justified

Good morning, Chicago.

Robert Crimo Jr.’s upcoming trial on charges of reckless conduct is an unusual case, according to experts, prosecutors and defense attorneys.

Only on a few occasions have parents faced prosecution for their child’s actions in a long and bloody history of mass shootings committed by young adult men in America.

Crimo Jr.’s Lake County Court trial is scheduled to start Monday.

Prosecutors argue Crimo Jr. took a “reckless and unjustified risk” in sponsoring his son’s Firearms Ownership Identification Card (FOID) application, and should have known his son was troubled, making him a poor candidate for gun ownership.

Crimo’s son, Robert Crimo III, then purchased firearms authorities say he used to spray over 70 rounds of ammunition into a crowded Central Avenue during the Highland Park Independence Day Parade last year.

Read the full story.

Here are the top stories you need to know to start your day.

Subscribe to more newsletters | Puzzles & Games | Today’s eNewspaper edition

Nearly five years after he was first charged, ex-Chicago Ald. Edward Burke is set to go on trial today in a high-stakes corruption case that will lay bare the inner workings of one of the city’s last Democratic machine politicians.

A pool of 50 prospective jurors is expected to begin live questioning in the 25th floor courtroom of U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall, a former federal prosecutor who inherited the case after the previous judge took a job with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Amid the terrifying stories coming out of Israel and Gaza, John Rauschenberger has one with a happy ending.

His daughter, Emilee, her husband and their five children were able to flee Gaza to Egypt Thursday, ending an ordeal in which they’d been trapped in the war-torn area since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel.

As people rush to get rid of their jack-o’-lanterns in favor of Thanksgiving decorations, thousands of ornamental pumpkins will likely end up in landfills.

Lacking oxygen and unable to break down and return to the soil, these discarded gourds decompose and fill the atmosphere with methane — a greenhouse gas that is more than 25 times as powerful as carbon dioxide in trapping heat.

It is unclear how many homeless U.S. citizens are staying among the nearly 2,800 migrants awaiting shelter placement in Chicago police stations.

A spokesperson for the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communication said it only tracks the number of asylum-seekers, and officials with the Department of Family and Support Services did not respond to a request for comment. The Chicago Police Department said they do not track how many U.S. citizens are sheltering with them.

Tracy Pinkham remembers all of it: The way the onions looked slimy and how she woke the next morning with a dry mouth and blurry vision that got worse as the day went on. Her head falling to her shoulders as her husband drove to a walk-in clinic that diagnosed her with an inner-ear infection and sent her home. The crowded emergency room. The doctor who scoured his medical textbook for answers. The two months on a breathing machine, paralyzed. The nightmares. The decades of muscle weakness that never seemed to get better despite physical therapy.

Over three days in October 1983, Pinkham and 27 other diners at the Skewer Inn, a beloved restaurant in Peoria’s Northwoods Mall, ate onions unknowingly contaminated with botulinum, one of nature’s deadliest toxins.

Afternoon Briefing

Weekdays

Chicago Tribune editors’ top story picks, delivered to your inbox each afternoon.

Just under 25% of Illinois hospitals earned A grades this fall from hospital safety nonprofit The Leapfrog Group, including 18% of Chicago’s 22 eligible hospitals. The grades examine safety procedures at general hospitals nationwide, focusing on prevention of medical errors, accidents and infections.

A former member of the Chicago Blackhawks’ “Black Aces” squad and teammate of Kyle Beach has alleged in a lawsuit that former video coach Brad Aldrich “groomed, harassed, threatened and assaulted” him during the 2009-10 season and that the Hawks suppressed his complaint to protect their Stanley Cup championship run.

It’s really difficult to turn the ball over five times, not get a single takeaway and wind up with not one, not two, not three, not four but five fourth-quarter possessions with an opportunity to go ahead or tie.

Ted Serios was a bellhop at the Conrad Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue, though probably not the kind of employee they expected. When he worked as a valet, he had a habit of joy riding in the guests’ cars. When he manned cash registers, he took home a dollar or two. He ran into police now and then. He had a history of alcoholism, and erratic behavior and was declared schizophrenic during a brief stay at Chicago State Hospital.

He also claimed to have incredible powers. Paranormal abilities, some said.