Robin Westman fired 119 shots, including 116 rifle rounds at children he wanted to see suffer according to Minneapolis authorities as they discuss motive in Annunciation Catholic Church shooting that left 2 kids dead and 18 injured.
Minneapolis authorities have told of the 23-year-old-gunman who fired a volley of gunshots at young children as they prayed during the first week of School mass firing over a hundred rounds at his victims whom he ‘wanted to watch suffer.’
Robin Westman is alleged to have ‘blindly’ fired over 116 rifle rounds and at least three shotgun blasts through the windows of Annunciation Catholic Church after being unable to enter through the locked exterior doors, Minneapolis Police said in an update Thursday.
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Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the church’s practice of locking doors during Mass ‘without a doubt’ saved additional lives, preventing Westman from getting a clear line of sight to his child victims — who Acting US Attorney for district of Minnesota Joe Thompson said the gunman ‘wanted to watch suffer.’
‘More than anything, the shooter wanted to kill children. Defenseless children,’ Thompson said at the afternoon press conference, adding that the Westman’s ‘heart was full of hate for every group imaginable.’
Adding, ‘The shooter saw the attack as a way to target the most vulnerable among us.’
O’Hara described the suspect as a ‘coward’ and said the shooting was a ‘deliberate act of violence’ that is ‘absolutely incomprehensible.’
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The attack left two young children, ages six and eight dead along with 18 others injured, including 15 children. The shooting came as students at the private Catholic school packed for a celebratory back to school Mass. Moments after firing off a volley of gunshots, Weston is alleged to have gone to the back of the church and taken their own life.
The young victims’ injuries ranged from ‘graze wounds’ to ‘some very serious life-threatening injuries,’ including some who are ‘very seriously injured and in critical condition,’ including surviving child Sophia Forchas, 12, who was rushed to hospital where her mom was working as a pediatrician nurse treating incoming patients.
O’Hara said investigators recovered three spent shotgun shells, 116 rifle rounds and a single bullet from a live handgun ‘that appears to have malfunctioned and got stuck in the chamber’ of his weapon.
So far ‘hundreds’ of pieces of evidence including electronic devices have been recovered from three local addresses known by authorities to be connected to Westman, all of which were visited by police bearing search warrants after the broad-daylight attack.
Authorities also stated more weapons were found at the shooter’s address where he lived with his father and step-mother nearby.
Annunciation shooting motive explored
Prior to unleashing their venom, Westman uploaded video and a notebook manifesto, chronicling their suffering and torment of transitioning from a male to female along with their antipathy to religion and even Trump.
Westman who had graduated from the grade school in 2017.
Commentators on social media have since wondered whether the shooting was a violent response and repudiation of his ‘repressed’ upbringing at the hands of his Catholic mother who had once attended rallies against Planned Parenthood and who had worked at the school until her retirement in 2021.
Of note, the mother signed off on her son’s name change in 2020 after a then Robert Westman petitioned to have their name changed to Robin while still a minor, at age 17.
Driver’s license information reviewed by ABC News describes Westman as a female, born on June 17, 2002.
Others meanwhile wondered whether the shooter had come to be radicalized by online forums which attract disaffected and disillusioned young men to express their grievances and sometimes encourage them to carry violent actions against society.
Commenting on the shooter’s motive, O’Hara said, ‘We are doing our best to determine a specific motive. Ultimately this person committed this act with the intention of causing as much terror, as much trauma, as much carnage as possible for their own personal notoriety.
O’Hara said that the shooter ‘fantasized about the plans of other mass shooters.’ A point of view corroborated by Westman’s notebook fascination in his online manifesto.
The police chief said Westman was not previously known to law enforcement, including any state-ordered mental health commitments.
