The shooter who opened fire at a Minneapolis Catholic school church, killing two children, has been identified as Robin Westman, 23.
Westman, who is transgender and previously went by the name Robert, shot through stained-glass windows at children sitting on the pews inside Annunciation Catholic School’s church at about 8.30am Wednesday, police said.
She then turned the gun on herself.
Two children aged eight and 10 were killed in the attack and at least 17 other victims – – 14 children and three adults – were injured.
Officials said they are looking into Westman’s motive but said she has no criminal history.
The shooter, who grew up in Richfield, changed her name to Robin in 2020, at the age of 17, the Daily Mail has learned.
Westman’s mother was an employee at the school before her 2021 retirement and has five other children.
A now-deleted YouTube account that belonged to Westman shared what appeared to be a written manifesto addressed to family and friends just hours before the shooting.
The video appeared to show a drawing of a church and showed someone stabbing the drawing repeatedly as a voice said: ‘I’m going to kill myself.’
Other clips posted to the YouTube account show gun part, a semi-automatic rifle and a shotgun. Gun magazines had been scrawled with the names of other mass shooters.
The phrases written on the magazines also included ‘for the children’ and ‘where is your God?’
Police said the gunman’s vehicle was parked near the school prior to the attack.
The vehicle and several homes connected to Westman, close to the school, are now being searched. Police said they had found more guns at the homes.
The shooter was armed with three guns – a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol – and used all three weapons during the attack, police said. The firearms were all purchased legally, police said.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the shooter approached the side of the church and shot through the windows toward the children sitting in the pews.
Police said at least two of the church doors appeared to have been blocked by two by fours before the shooting, suggesting the gunman wanted to trap people inside.
It is unclear if the shooter fired any of the weapons from inside the church or carried out the entire mass shooting outside before going inside.
Westman’s body was found inside.
The victims’ identities have not yet been publicly released.
‘The coward who fired these shots ultimately took his own life in the rear of the church,’ said O’Hara, who added that the gunman acted in a ‘deliberate act of violence’.
‘This was a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshipping. The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible,’ said the police chief, who noted that a wooden plank was placed to barricade some of the side doors.
The students at the Catholic grade school had started school on Monday and were attending mass when the shooter stormed the church.
Founded in 1923, Annunciation Catholic School had 391 students enrolled for the 2023-24 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The school goes from pre-K to eighth grade.
Recent social media posts from the school show children smiling at a back-to-school event, holding up summer art projects, playing together and enjoying ice pops.
Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar told MSNBC that a seven-year-old watched as the gunman shot her friends in the back and neck.
‘These kids are doing an all-school mass and had to watch several of her friends get shot – one in the back, one in the neck,’ Klobuchar said. ‘And they all got down under the pews.’
The mass shooting came hours after seven people were shot, one fatally, in a separate mass shooting near a Catholic high school in south Minneapolis Tuesday, reported KARE 11.
Police said the suspect, who escaped in a vehicle and does not appear to have been arrested since, fired around 30 rounds from a high-velocity .223 rifle.
Authorities have not confirmed any connection between the shootings.