PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
MINNEAPOLIS, Aug 27 (Reuters) – Two children were killed and 17 other people were wounded on Wednesday at a Minneapolis Catholic school when a shooter dressed in black opened fire on students attending Mass on the third day of school, authorities said.
The assailant fired through the windows at students sitting in pews and entering the church and then killed himself, officials said. Two students, 8 years old and 10 years old, were pronounced dead at the scene, they said.
“This was a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshiping. The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told reporters.
The shooting was one of the first signs that the epidemic of gun violence at U.S. schools in recent years has not abated as the fall semester opens.
It also shows the difficulty that authorities face in stopping such shootings, even though new technologies, screening techniques and policing protocols have been developed over the years to prevent recurrences. The shooter in Minneapolis was able to avoid safeguards against intruders entering the school by targeting children through the windows of a nearby church.
Officials identified the attacker as Robin Westman, 23. Officials referred to the assailant as a male at news conferences. Court records show Westman’s name was changed from Robert in 2020 on the grounds that Westman identified as female.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the incident should not be used as an excuse to persecute other transgender people. “Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community, or any other community out there, has lost their sense of common humanity,” he said at a news conference.
The shooting at Annunciation Catholic School, a private elementary school with about 395 students, was the 146th such incident in the country since January, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database.
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