Hours after the deadly shooting unfolded inside a Catholic school in Minnesota, police identified Robin Westman as the suspected shooter.
The first gunshots rang out at about 8.30 a.m. at a church adjacent to the Annunciation Catholic School in a south side suburb of Minneapolis as schoolkids and teachers gathered for the first Mass of the school year, authorities said.
Westman, 23, dressed all in black and armed with a rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol, fired dozens of rounds through the stained-glass windows into Annunciation Church after barricading its doors shut.
Two children, aged eight and 10, were shot dead in the pews of the church while 17 others, including 14 children aged six to 15 and three parishioners in their 80s, were injured, police said. The suspect died by a self-inflicted gunshot as law enforcement rushed to the scene.
Police have not identified a motive in the shooting (Reuters)The FBI is investigating the attack as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime against Catholics, while President Donald Trump offered his condolences to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and ordered flags to half-staff.
As police search for a motive for the attack, including looking into a possible video manifesto published by Westman, here is what we know about Wednesday’s tragic incident:
Who was the shooter?
Robin Westman, formerly Robert, legally changed their name in 2019 after identifying as a woman, according to court documents. The suspect doesn’t have a criminal history, and police are still trying to determine a motive for the attack.
The suspect’s mother, Mary Westman, retired from her job as a secretary at the Annunciation church in 2021 after five years, according to social media postings. She was also on the honor roll of school donors for having given up to $5,000, according to the Washington Post.
The youngest of three growing up in Hastings, Minnesota, Westman’s father took the family to church, according to The Post.
Westman’s maternal uncle, Robert Heleringer, a former Republican representative in the Kentucky General Assembly, described their family’s strictly Catholic upbringing in multiple op-eds published in the 2010s.
Robin Westman has been identified as the shooter at the Minnesota church (via REUTERS)Speaking to the Today Show on Thursday morning, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said Westman was a previous member of Annunciation Church and a former student at the school.
A 2017 Annunciation yearbook seen by the Minnesota Star-Tribune showed that Westman, who then went by Robert, attended the school for at least one year. The newspaper said that the teenager quoted the French band Daft Punk when giving advice to younger students, writing: “Work it. Make it. Do it. Makes us. Harder. Better. Faster. Stronger.”
Westman spent the next few years jumping from school to school, with an official with Minnesota Transitions Charter School confirming to the Star-Tribune that the student attended one of its schools for just three months, leaving in October 2017. Westman graduated from Southwest High School in Minneapolis in 2021, records show.
The suspect had worked at a Rise medical cannabis dispensary, reportedly until August 16. A co-worker told the newspaper that Westman had been disciplined for lateness and skipping work.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told MSNBC he does not have any information on Robin Westman’s prior mental illness. He noted that Westman was never confined for mental illness.
O’Hara said the Westman’s weapons — a rifle, shotgun and a pistol — used at Wednesday’s attack were all lawfully purchased.
What was the motive?
Two children died and 17 others have been injured after a suspect fired ‘dozens’ of rounds at a church in Minneapolis (Reuters)The motive behind the tragedy was not immediately clear and police continued their investigation on Thursday.
But O’Hara told MSNBC Thursday that Westman wanted to “terrorize as many people as possible” and said that there was “some degree of planning” that went into the shooting.
The cop also noted the shooter had been to the church before and likely intended to get inside, but ultimately could not because the church’s doors were locked.
On Wednesday, O’Hara condemned the attack as “a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshipping.”
A vigil was held Wednesday evening at the Academy of Holy Angels to honor the victims, with speakers including Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, and state Senator Amy Klobuchar.
O’Hara said that investigators are scouring through a video “manifesto” which was posted to YouTube to “try and develop a motive.”
What does social media show?
Police say that before Wednesday’s attack, Westman timed a series of YouTube videos to be posted to coincide with the attack.
The videos, which were pulled from the platform, show weapons etched with racial slurs and a death threat against President Donald Trump. They included “psycho killer” and “suck on this!” and “6 million wasn’t enough.”
Westman filmed a so-called ‘manifesto’ which was timed to post at a similar time to the attack, police say (via REUTERS)Westman also shared their reverence for six mass shooters, including Adam Lanza, who killed 26 people at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.
The names also included Robert Bowers, the gunman in the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and “Rupnow,” an apparent reference to Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow who opened fire at Wisconsin’s Abundant Life Christian School in 2024.
“Breivik” is also mentioned, seemingly referencing Anders Behring Breivik, a neo-Nazi who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011.
In another 20-minute video, Westman flipped through the pages of a journal filled with text that appears to be English written using Cyrillic script. In that video, she can be heard saying: “I love my family” and “I can’t deal with this anymore.”
One page was titled “Annuciation from memory” in Cyrillic, according to a translation by BBC Verify. It includes a sketch of the layout of a church, which the person in the video stabs with a knife.
Westman weighs the options of when and where it might be best to attack “a large group of kids,” in other notes analysed by the BBC.
The writer also expresses a desire to “catch a big assembly on the first day of school” and the intention to avoid parents because they could be armed.
A drawing of a church layout appears in a still image from an undated video that was previously posted to social media and filmed by Robin Westman (via REUTERS)“Sick f*** sick f*** murderer,” read in massive all-caps letters on another page. The last page shown in the video reads: “The end. I’m so sorry.” It’s signed “Robin” with a heart drawn next to it.
In another clip, a knife stabs the center of a page depicting the layout of a church, complete with drawings of the doorways, the pews, a cross and even a compass to show which direction it faces.
Yet another clip shows the suspect showing off guns and ammunition. Silver ink is scrawled on each of the black weapons. “Kiss me” is written on the barrel of one gun, while the names of famous mass killers are written on another.
