Plea Deal in Illinois Parade Shooting Falls Apart, Upsetting Victims’ Families

Relatives of the victims of a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill., two summers ago somberly filed into a courtroom on Wednesday morning.

They had assembled with a hopeful expectation: that the accused gunman had agreed to change his plea in the murders of seven people to guilty, bringing some measure of resolution to the residents of Highland Park, a quiet, upscale suburb 25 miles north of Chicago, and sparing the families the pain of a trial next spring.

But the families left the courtroom in anguish and disgust. The accused, Robert Crimo III, 23, rejected a plea agreement that lawyers were preparing to present to a judge, dealing a blow to prosecutors, his own public defenders and the families of the victims, who sat in shocked silence when he told the judge that he would stick with his earlier plea of not guilty.

Read more of Julie Bosman's reporting on the plea deal and hearing in the New York Times.