Hours after the deadly shooting unfolded inside a Catholic school in Minnesota, police identified Robin Westman as the suspected shooter. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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\u2019s tragic incident: <\/p>\n
Who was the shooter?<\/p>\n
Robin Westman, formerly Robert, legally changed their name in 2019 after identifying as a woman, according to court documents. The suspect doesn\u2019t have a criminal history, and police are still trying to determine a motive for the attack. <\/p>\n
The suspect\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n
The youngest of three growing up in Hastings, Minnesota, Westman\u2019s father took the family to church, according to The Post. <\/p>\n
Westman\u2019s maternal uncle, Robert Heleringer, a former Republican representative in the Kentucky General Assembly, described their family\u2019s strictly Catholic upbringing in multiple op-eds published in the 2010s. <\/p>\n
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\u2019Hara said Westman was a previous member of Annunciation Church and a former student at the school. <\/p>\n
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: \u201cWork it. Make it. Do it. Makes us. Harder. Better. Faster. Stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O\u2019Hara told MSNBC he does not have any information on Robin Westman\u2019s prior mental illness. He noted that Westman was never confined for mental illness.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Hara said the Westman\u2019s weapons \u2014 a rifle, shotgun and a pistol \u2014 used at Wednesday\u2019s attack were all lawfully purchased.<\/p>\n
What was the motive?<\/p>\n
Two children died and 17 others have been injured after a suspect fired \u2018dozens\u2019 of rounds at a church in Minneapolis (Reuters)The motive behind the tragedy was not immediately clear and police continued their investigation on Thursday. <\/p>\n
But O\u2019Hara told MSNBC Thursday that Westman wanted to \u201cterrorize as many people as possible\u201d and said that there was \u201csome degree of planning\u201d that went into the shooting. <\/p>\n
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\u2019s doors were locked.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, O\u2019Hara condemned the attack as \u201ca deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshipping.\u201d <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Hara said that investigators are scouring through a video \u201cmanifesto\u201d which was posted to YouTube to \u201ctry and develop a motive.\u201d <\/p>\n
What does social media show?<\/p>\n
Police say that before Wednesday\u2019s attack, Westman timed a series of YouTube videos to be posted to coincide with the attack. <\/p>\n
The videos, which were pulled from the platform, show weapons etched with racial slurs and a death threat against President Donald Trump. They included \u201cpsycho killer\u201d and \u201csuck on this!\u201d and \u201c6 million wasn\u2019t enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u200b\u200bAdam Lanza, who killed 26 people at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.<\/p>\n
The names also included Robert Bowers, the gunman in the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and \u201cRupnow,\u201d an apparent reference to Natalie \u201cSamantha\u201d Rupnow who opened fire at Wisconsin\u2019s Abundant Life Christian School in 2024. <\/p>\n
\u201cBreivik\u201d is also mentioned, seemingly referencing Anders Behring Breivik, a neo-Nazi who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011.<\/p>\n
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: \u201cI love my family\u201d and \u201cI can\u2019t deal with this anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
One page was titled \u201cAnnuciation from memory\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
Westman weighs the options of when and where it might be best to attack \u201ca large group of kids,\u201d in other notes analysed by the BBC.<\/p>\n
The writer also expresses a desire to \u201ccatch a big assembly on the first day of school\u201d and the intention to avoid parents because they could be armed.<\/p>\n
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)\u201cSick f*** sick f*** murderer,\u201d read in massive all-caps letters on another page. The last page shown in the video reads: \u201cThe end. I\u2019m so sorry.\u201d It\u2019s signed \u201cRobin\u201d with a heart drawn next to it.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Yet another clip shows the suspect showing off guns and ammunition. Silver ink is scrawled on each of the black weapons. \u201cKiss me\u201d is written on the barrel of one gun, while the names of famous mass killers are written on another. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n