Police Chief Gives Encouraging Update On Child Shooting Victims Still In Hospital

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara provided an encouraging update on the status of injured students after a transgender-identifying gunman opened fire at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning.

Two children, aged 8 and 10, were killed when 23-year-old Robin Westman indiscriminately opened fire during a school-wide mass. 14 additional children and three adults were also injured in the attack.

Around 3 p.m. local time, O’Hara held a press conference in which he provided updates on the injured children. Of the nine victims who were hospitalized with serious injuries, four underwent emergency surgeries.

Thankfully, all of the injured victims are expected to survive.

According to police, Westman, who was dressed in all black, was armed with a shotgun, semiautomatic rifle and at least one handgun when he opened fire at students through the church’s windows. He then took his own life behind the building after taking his own life.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed that the gunman uploaded a number of disturbing videos, one of which included a manifesto, before carrying out the attack. The videos contained references to other mass shooters and were particularly modeled after the Christchurch mosque shooter, who scribbled messages on his weapons and magazines in white font.

Westman did the same. Messages on the weapons displayed — which were presumably used in the attack — included “Where is your god?”… Kill Donald Trump” and “I’m the joker, baby. Why so queerious?”

An additional image in the one of the videos showed a photo of Jesus Christ atop a gun range target. Due to the messages portrayed in the videos, the FBI is investigating the attack as an anti-Catholic hate crime and an act of terrorism.

Despite this, O’Hara told reporters that police have been unable to identify a motive at this time. “I have no information to share on a motive other than saying, again, that there was some sort of manifesto that was timed to come out on YouTube. It’s been taken down and our investigators are going through that to try and develop a motive from that,” the police chief said.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey — who delivered a partisan speech denouncing prayer as useless in his first public statements following the attack — told reporters that harassment directed towards the “trans community” were a top priority of his administration.

“I have heard about a whole lot of hate that is being directed towards our trans community. Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community has lost their sense of common humanity,” the mayor said. “We should not be operating out of a place of hate for anyone.”

According to a report from Fox 9 Minneapolis, Westman’s mother previously worked at Annunciation. The shooter’s mother also applied to change her child’s name from Robert to Robin in Dakota County in 2019, according to court documents reviewed by the outlet.

According to the name change filing, Westman identified “as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification.”