(Richfield) Only a few hours after a shooter opened fire through the windows of a Catholic church in Minneapolis, killing two children and injuring 17 people, hundreds of citizens gathered in the gymnasium of a neighboring school, hugging each other and wiping tears during a vigil alongside Governor Tim Walz and members of the clergy.
Addressing a silent crowd on Wednesday evening, while hundreds of other people were waiting outside, Archbishop Bernard Hebda described the students who were trying to protect their comrades when the shots broke out.
“In the midst of all this, there was courage, bravery, but especially love,” he told the Academy of Holy Angels school, about 3.2 kilometers south of the place of the shooting, in the suburbs of Richfield.
Photo Tim Evans, Reuters
Hundreds of citizens gathered in the gymnasium of a minneapolis school during a vigil in honor of the victims of the shooting on Wednesday.
Armed with a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol, Robin Westman, 23 years old, fired dozens of gunshots on Wednesday morning in the direction of children sitting on the benches during mass at the Catholic School of the Annunciation, said the chief of the Minneapolis police, Brian O’hara, during press conferences. The shooter then took off life, he said.
The dead children were eight and ten years old. Fourteen other children and three octogenarian parishioners were injured, but should survive, said the chief.
The Reverend Dennis Zehren, who was in the church with the 200 children, said that they had almost reached the end of the responsible psalm, which speaks of light in darkness. It was then that he heard someone screaming: “On the ground, on the ground, everyone!” And the shots started.
Weston Halsne, a fifth year student, told journalists that he had lowered to join the benches, his head covered, protected by a friend elongated on him. His friend was touched, he said.
“I was very afraid for him, but I think he’s going well now,” said the ten -year -old child.
Police investigation
FBI director Kash Patel said on X that the shooting was the subject of an investigation for internal terrorism and hatred crime targeting Catholics.
Robin Westman’s mother had worked in church for five years and retired in 2021, according to a Facebook publication of the church that year. It is unknown if Robin Westman has already attended the church or has been registered in school.
Brian O’Hara stressed that the police had not determined the mobile of the killing. The chief said, however, that the investigators were examining a publication on social networks that seemed to show the shooter on the scene.
Mr. O’Hara, who said that the injured young people were six to fifteen years old, said that a wooden board had been placed to barricade certain side doors and that the authorities had found a smoke on the scene.
Photo Abbie Parr, Associated Press
An improvised memorial was installed in front of the Annunciation Catholic school.
On a YouTube channel entitled Robin W, the alleged shooter published at least two videos before the chain was closed on Wednesday. In one of them, he shows a cache of weapons and ammunition, some bearing inscriptions such as “kill Donald Trump” and “Where is your God? ».
A second video shows the alleged shooter pointing to two external windows in what seems to be a drawing of the church, then stabbing them with a long knife.
Robin Westman’s uncle, the former state legislator of Kentucky Bob Heleringer, said he did not know the alleged shooter and having been disconcerted by this “indescribable tragedy”.
The police chief said Robin Westman had no busy criminal record and that he would have acted alone.
The federal authorities described the alleged shooter of Transgender, and the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, denounced hatred directed against “our transgender community”. Westman’s identity was not clear. In 2020, a judge approved a petition, signed by Westman’s mother, requesting Robert’s name change in Robin, claiming that the petitioner “identifies himself as a woman and hopes that her name reflects this identity”.
Rescued children
The police chief said the agents immediately intervened after the shooting was reported, entered the church, provided first aid and rescued some of the children.
The director of the Annunciation church, Matt Deboer, said that teachers and children had also reacted with heroism.
“The children have lowered themselves. Adults protected children. Older children protected the youngest, “he said.
Vincent Francoual said that his 11 -year -old daughter Chloe had survived the shooting at the bottom to hide in a room with a table with the door. But he still does not know exactly how she was able to escape, because she struggles to communicate clearly on this traumatic scene.
“She told us today that she was thinking of dying,” he said.
Governor Walz deplored that the children who had just started the school year “were welcomed by evil, horror and death”. He and President Donald Trump ordered the soil of the flags on the state and the federal government, respectively, and the White House said that the two men had maintained themselves. The Governor was the Democratic candidate for the vice-presidency in the election of last year against Mr. Trump’s package, the current vice-president JD Vance, a republican.
From the Vatican, Pope Léon XIV has sent a condolence telegram. Born in Chicago, the first American pope in history, said praying for those close to the victims.
On Monday was the start of the school year at the Annunciation, a centenary school located in a green residential and commercial district about eight kilometers south of the city center of Minneapolis.
