(Minneapolis) An armed man opened fire through the windows of the church of a Catholic school in Minneapolis on Wednesday. He touched a group of children celebrating mass, killing two of them and 17 injured. This act of violence was described as “absolutely incomprehensible” by the local police chief.
Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara said that the shooter, armed with a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol, approached the church and fired dozens of gunshots through the windows towards the children seated on the benches during mass at the Catholic school annunctiation. Police think that the armed man then committed suicide.
“This is an act of deliberate violence against innocent children and other faithful. The pure and simple cruelty and cowardice to shoot a church filled with children are absolutely incomprehensible, “said the police chief, who stressed that a wooden board had been placed to barricade certain side doors. The authorities have found a smoke, but no explosives on the scene, he said.
Photo Abbie Parr, Associated Press
The mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, seated on the steps of the school of the annunctiation church.
The dead children were 8 and 10 years old, said Mr. O’Hara. Dozens of other young people were inside.
The authorities were investigating the suspect’s mobile. According to Brian O’Hara, the man, in his twenties, had no significant criminal history and acted alone.
Bill Bienemann, who has lived a few streets away and has long been frequent mass in the school church, said he had heard dozens of gunshots, perhaps up to 50, for four minutes.
“I was in shock. I said to myself: “It’s impossible that it is shots,” he said. There were so many. »»
The school was evacuated and the families of the students were then directed to a “reunification zone” within the establishment. Outside, in the middle of a strong presence of the police, there were children in uniform, dressed in shirts or dark green dresses. Many of them came out of school with adults, giving themselves long hugs and wiping their tears.
Photo Richard Tsong-Taatarii, Associated Press
Parents expect news from their children outside the school
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has described the violence of “horrible”.
“I pray for our children and teachers whose first week of school was spoiled by this act of horrible violence,” he wrote on social networks.
Hennepin Healthcare, the main trauma hospital in Minneapolis, welcomed 11 patients, including nine children aged 6 to 14 and two adults, said the DR Thomas Wyatt, emergency manager. He said four of the patients were taken to the operating room. Children’s Minnesota, a pediatric trauma hospital, said five children had been admitted.
Local, state, departmental and federal police officers have converged towards the residential and commercial district located about 8 kilometers south of the city center of Minneapolis.
On his network, Truth Social, the American president, Donald Trump, said he was informed of the “tragic shooting” and that the White House would continue to follow the evolution of the situation.
Screenshot from Donald Trump’s social social account
Dating from 1923, the school organized a mass for the whole school at 8:15 am Wednesday morning, according to its website. Monday was back to school. Recent publications on social networks show smiling children during a back -to -school event, carrying out summer artistic projects, playing together and tasting water ice.
The shooting occurred while city officials of the city gathered elsewhere in Minneapolis. The president of the National Democratic Committee, Ken Martin, informed the assembly of the situation.
Photo Richard Tsong-Taatarii, Associated Press
A mother hugs her son in her arms.
This incident is the last in a series of fatal shootings that occurred in the city in less than 24 hours. One person was killed and six others injured in a shootout Tuesday afternoon in front of a secondary school in Minneapolis. A few hours later, two people were killed in two other shootings in the city.
Wednesday’s shooting in a school followed a wave of fraudulent calls concerning alleged shootings on at least ten American university campuses. These false alerts, sometimes accompanied by noise of gunshots in the background, prompted universities to broadcast text messages inviting to “run, hide” and frightened students from all over the country to the start of the school year.
The journalists of the Associated Press, Hannah Fingerhut, at monks (Iowa), Jennifer Peltz, in New York, Jack Dura, in Bismarck (Dakota du Nord), and Sarah Brumfield, in Cockeysville (Maryland), contributed to this dispatch.
