US EditionAnnunciation Church and school shooting: 11-year-old girl shot in neck, recovering in ICU
The shooter targeted children and adults during morning mass, with 15 children and three adults injured and two children killed, officials said.
- During a morning Mass on Aug. 27 at Annunciation Church and Catholic School in south Minneapolis, Robin Westman, 23, fired through stained-glass windows, killing two children, ages 8 and 10, and injuring 17 people, including 14 children.
- Investigators say the suspect left behind videos and writings showing admiration for mass killers and violent content tied to Robin Westman, including antisemitic slurs on firearms, while local records confirm Westman attended Annunciation Catholic School and his mother, Mary Grace Westman, worked there.
- Police said the locked doors forced the attacker to fire from outside, with church staff and students shielding children under pews; investigators recovered three shotgun shells and 116 rifle rounds, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said.
- Despite calls for tighter laws, Minnesota's closely split Legislature and gun-rights groups resisted assault-rifle bans Thursday, while Gov. Tim Walz, Minnesota governor, supported the ban and spoke across party lines.
- Community vigils have grown, with a GoFundMe raising more than $32,000, while Hennepin Healthcare reports one student remains "touch and go" and others receive critical care.
22 Articles
22 Articles
Witnesses describe terror and courage during the Minneapolis school shooting
The students were running a little late for their first Mass of the school year at the Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis on Wednesday.“I checked my watch, it was supposed to start at 8:15. It was 8:18 and they were still filing in,” Cathrine Spandel told NPR on Thursday outside of the church’s large stained glass windows. One student was admonished for failing to genuflect before going into the pews, she recalled.Spandel was in church …
School Shootings Underscore Our Religious Race Against Time
Scott Olson People leave flowers and other mementoes in front of Annunciation Catholic Church on Thursday; the memorial to the victims of Wednesday’s shooting in Minneapolis is rapidly growing. COMMENTARY: A Church that often seems to move at a deliberate pace needs to have a much greater sense of urgency, purpose, creativity and conviction as we see the signs of the times.
As a teenager, Robin Westman claimed to have been suspended after talking about school shootings with classmates; he later wrote in a newspaper that that incident was the source of a deep obsession with the perpetrators of killings. A decade later, Westman returned to the Catholic Annunciation School and carried out those dark fantasies, killing two children at a mass this Wednesday morning and injuring 18 other people. While Minneapolis recover…
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