What we covered here
• A shooter fired through the windows of a church in Minneapolis Wednesday, killing two children. Fourteen other children and three elderly parishioners were wounded while marking the first week of class at Annunciation Catholic School.
• The shooter, now dead, was identified as 23-year-old Robin Westman. Westman shared a “manifesto” on social media that is being investigated, police said. The shooter graduated from the school in 2017.
• The attack is the latest in a string of deadly shootings in Minnesota. It is also the 44th school shooting in the US this year, according to a CNN analysis. It has prompted some Democrats to renew calls for gun control.
Catholic school attack was the fourth deadly shooting in Minneapolis in less than 24 hours
The attack at a Catholic school in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning was the fourth deadly shooting the city had seen in roughly 24 hours, according to CNN affiliates KARE and WCCO.
Speaking before the attack on Annunciation Catholic School, police chief Brian O’Hara called the level of gun violence in the city over the last day “deeply unsettling,” according to KARE.
The first was at about 2 p.m. on Tuesday in south Minneapolis, when a shooter killed one person and wounded six others, KARE reported, citing police.
At around 8 p.m. in another location, a shooter killed one man and injured another.
Then at around 2 a.m. Wednesday, a shooter approached a group on a sidewalk and started shooting, killing one and wounding another, WCCO reported.
Minneapolis Police said Wednesday they did not know if the three shootings were connected.
The Democratic National Committee abruptly ended the final day of its summer meeting in Minneapolis on Wednesday after getting word of the deadly school shooting at the nearby Annunciation Church. DNC chair Ken Martin announced the shooting had occurred “no more than 10 minutes from where we are now” and urged anyone with medical training to help if they could. The DNC meeting’s closing session, which was scheduled to last three hours, ended after less than 12 minutes. Martin, a native of Minnesota, began the shortened session by saying, “We are heartbroken.” After a short prayer, the committee voted to unanimously approve all committee reports and adjourn early. The DNC leader told attendees that Wednesday’s shooting came “on the heels of a tragic year where we already lost our dear friends Melissa and Mark Hortman,” referring to the former Democratic speaker of the Minnesota state House, who was assassinated along with her husband at their home in June. Democratic leaders opened this week’s summer meeting by honoring Hortman’s legacy. Many Democrats are renewing calls for new gun control measures in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting.
Em Paulson, a paraprofessional at a Minneapolis-area elementary school, told CNN Wednesday’s shooting at Annunciation Catholic School hits close to home. “It’s so riveting hearing about any school shooting no matter what profession you’re in, but when you work in a school, it hurts just a little bit more,” they said.
There have been 44 US school shootings this year, according to a CNN analysis of events reported by the Gun Violence Archive, Education Week and Everytown for Gun Safety. That number is one higher than the number of school shootings, 43, that had happened at this point in the year in 2024. The years since the pandemic have seen a stark increase in school shootings, with 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 all setting records since at least 2008, when CNN began tracking such events across public and private K-12 schools and colleges/universities across the United States. Of the 44 shootings in 2025, 22 shootings have been reported on K-12 campuses and 22 on university and college campuses.News of shooting interrupted nearby Democratic National Committee meeting
Minneapolis-area elementary school worker says shooting hits too close to home
Minneapolis shooting is the 44th such attack on students this year, according to a CNN analysis
Minneapolis shooter’s uncle — a former Kentucky lawmaker — mourns “unspeakable tragedy”
An uncle of the Minneapolis shooter has called today’s attack at a Catholic school Mass “an unspeakable tragedy,” according to the Associated Press.
Bob Heleringer, who is a former Kentucky lawmaker, told the AP the shooter was one of his sister’s children. He said he did not know the shooter, Robin Westman, well and last saw his relative at a family wedding several years ago.
“I wish (Westman) had shot me instead of innocent schoolchildren,” Heleringer said.
This post has been updated with more information from AP.
A shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school kills 2 children, injures 17 people
On Wednesday evening, hundreds prayed, wiped away tears and held each other during a packed vigil at a nearby school’s gym where Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, along with Catholic clergy, joined the mourners.
Archbishop Bernard Hebda talked about the inscription at the front of the Annunciation Church that reads: “House of God and the gate of heaven.”
“How is it that such a terrible tragedy could take place in a place that’s the house of God and the gate of heaven?” he asked. “It’s unthinkable.”
Fifth-grader Weston Halsne told reporters he ducked for the pews, covering his head, shielded by a friend who was lying on top of him. His friend was hit, he said.
“I was super scared for him, but I think now he’s okay,” the 10-year-old said, adding that he was praying for the other hospitalized children and adults.
Halsne’s grandfather, Michael Simpson, said the violence during Mass on the third day of school left him wondering whether God was watching over.
“I don’t know where He is,” Simpson said.
Police investigate motive for the shooting
FBI Director Kash Patel said on X that the shooting is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime targeting Catholics.
O’Hara said police hadn’t yet found any relationship between the shooter and the church, nor determined a motive for the bloodshed. The chief said, however, that investigators were examining a social media post that appeared to show the shooter at the scene.
“The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible,” said O’Hara, who gave the wounded youngsters’ ages as 6 to 15. He said a wooden plank was placed to barricade some of the side doors, and that authorities found a smoke bomb at the scene.
On a YouTube channel titled Robin W, the alleged shooter released at least two videos before the channel was taken down by site administrators Wednesday.
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