4:25 p.m. - Rob Doar, senior vice president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, reviewed a recent YouTube video posted by Westman showing various guns and ammunition. Doar identified the weapons as an AR-15 rifle, a Mossberg 590 Cruiser shotgun, a Smith & Wesson M&P compact 9mm handgun with three magazines, and a revolver that appears to be a Colt 38 Special police issue. He also saw in the video two 30-round AR-15 magazines among numerous others holding anywhere from 20 to 60 rounds. The AR-15 magazine had M855 NATO Green Tip ammunition, while the 9-millimeter handgun had Full Metal Jacket rounds.
“Both of these are relatively cheap range ammunition, not typically used for hunting or self-defense,” Doar said. “The NATO round is designed to shoot through barricades, utilizing a steel core. They are sold cheaply as surplus range ammunition.”
- Paul Walsh
4:15 p.m. - Twin Cities restaurants responded to Wednesday’s tragedy the way they know best: through hospitality. The Lowbrow offered gift certificates for meals to victims and families of victims who are regulars of the south Minneapolis restaurant, asking friends and neighbors of the affected to get the gift cards or meals to those who need them. “Our hearts are heavy; full of rage and sorrow,” the Lowbrow
wrote on Facebook. “South Mpls: Know that we love you and hope to be there for you in the coming days and weeks. We want to be a place for you to break bread and grieve.” Red Wagon Pizza, about a mile from Annunciation,
is closing early Wednesday, at 7 p.m., so team members can attend a candlelight vigil. And El Sazon Cocina & Tragos, which is around the corner from the school,
offered their restaurant as “a place to sit, to gather, to grieve, or simply to share a meal with others. If you need comfort, a listening ear, or just a reminder that this community cares with you, our doors are open.”
- Sharyn Jackson
4:10 p.m. - Robin Westman was employed “for several months” earlier this year by Rise, a chain of medical cannabis dispensaries in Minnesota, a spokesman for the chain’s parent company Green Thumb Industries confirmed in a statement. Westman was not employed by Rise at the time of the Annunciation Church shooting. Rise is cooperating fully with law enforcement, the statement said, but the company declined to provide additional details about Westman. “We are deeply saddened by the tragic events that occurred today in Minnesota. Our deepest condolences go out to the victims, their families, and the entire community impacted by this senseless act of violence,” the statement read.
- Matt DeLong
4:05 p.m. - Nick Petersen, spokesman for Children’s Minnesota, released the following: seven children between ages 9-16 were admitted to the hospital for care. One patient has been discharged.
- Paul Walsh
3:59 p.m. - In a
statement posted to social media on Wednesday, school staff asked for prayers and praised the reactions of school staff and first responders. “This morning, a gunman began shooting into our church from the outside during Mass. You need to know that within seconds, our heroic staff moved students under the pews. Law enforcement responded quickly and evacuated all of our children and staff to safety in a matter of minutes when it was safe to do so.” The statement said that two “beloved” students died and “a number of other children and parishioners were wounded.” Some are still being treated at area hospitals and others have been treated and released. “All staff are physically safe and accounted for,” the statement read.
School and church staff said it is unclear when students will return to class. “As we process and navigate this unfathomable time together, we will be in touch this weekend regarding when school will resume,” read the statement from Principal Matthew DeBoer and Dennis Zehren, pastor of the Church of the Annunciation.
- Mara Klecker
3:53 p.m. - Danielle Gunter, mother of an eighth-grade boy who survived being shot, said in a statement Wednesday afternoon to news media that “we feel the pain, the anger, the confusion, and the searing reality that our lives will never be the same. Yet we still have our child.” Gunter praised the police “who raced into danger for others, for us. We thank them all. Our son shared with us that an MPD officer ‘really helped him.’ He said the officer rendered aid, hugged him, reassured him, and prayed with him before getting into the ambulance.”
She called on leaders in the community to “place armed security at schools to prevent another tragedy like this. There is no higher calling than keeping kids safe — and it starts with protecting them from evil in this world.”
- Paul Walsh
3:35 p.m. - Gov. Tim Walz said in an interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune that the state is reeling from a summer that has now seen two targeted acts of extreme violence, one against state lawmakers and one against children inside a church.
“It is traumatic,” Walz said. “I think this is a state where any of these shootings is too many but I think something like the assassination of Melissa and Mark [Hortman] and now this just unimaginable killing children in their pew.”
Walz said his phone call with President Trump today showed an openness to dialogue across the political aisle on how to prevent similar killings.
— Jeff Day
3:15 p.m. - A 2017 Annunciation yearbook showed that Robin Westman, who went by Robert at the time, attended the school for at least one year.
— Eva Herscowitz
3:10 p.m. - Speaking to Annunciation students, parents and staff, an emotional principal Matt DeBoer said, “You are so brave, and I am so sorry that this happened to us today.”
“Within seconds of this situation beginning, our teachers were heroes. Children were ducked down, adults were protecting children, older children were protecting younger children and, as we heard earlier, it could have been significantly worse without their heroic action,” he added.
— Paul Walsh
3 p.m. - Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said two children, ages 8 and 10, were sitting in the pews at mass when they were shot and killed. Others injured were between the ages of 6 and 15. Three injured adults were in their 80s. All injured victims are expected to survive, O’Hara said.
The rifle, shotgun and pistol Robin Westman allegedly used were lawfully purchased, he said. Police are now executing four search warrants: One for the church, the other three for nearby residences related to the suspected shooter, and “additional firearms recovered from there as we speak.”
O’Hara also said police are aware of a manifesto that the shooter had timed to be released on YouTube.
— Abby Simons
2:53 p.m. - Regarding the staff at Annunciation, Mayor Jacob Frey said “The way they acted was nothing short of heroic.”
“As horrible as this has been it could have been far worse.”
He went on to thank first responders for their bravery. “It can’t just be words, there needs to be action and when we have seen school shooting after school shooting, when we have seen churches get shot up by bad actors, the impetus has to be on us to do more … It’s on all of us.”
Frey added that “Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainized our trans community or any community out there has lost their sense of humanity.”
“Kids died today,” Frey said. “This needs to be about them. This needs to be about wrapping our arms around these families with every bit of love that we can possibly show.”
— Abby Simons
2:50 p.m. - Gov. Tim Walz said that on the first days of school, “Instead of that joy and curiosity they were met with evil and horror and death. We often say this is unspeakable tragedy and there are no words. Well, there shouldn’t be words.”
Walz said that once the cameras are gone, Minnesotans will stand together. “It’s on these days like this we are unified as a community. Everyone in this community today is part of that Annunciation parish.”
— Abby Simons
2:48 p.m. - Sen. Tina Smith, who lives with her husband a couple of miles from Annunciation, expressed shock and horror at the violence in her hometown.
“These little kiddos are in this celebratory Mass in their first week of school, to be exposed to this level of hatred and violence?” said Smith, a Democrat. “I think in these kinds of moments, there is a struggle to understand why. How could someone do this?”
—
Christopher Vondracek
2:39 p.m. - FBI Director Kash Patel said his agency is “investigating this shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and hate crime targeting Catholics.”
2:31 p.m. - Officials are set to hold a press briefing on the deadly shooting. Watch the briefing live below:
— David Taintor
2:30 p.m. - A video posted Wednesday on a YouTube channel that appears to have belonged to Westman displays four guns, ammunition, a letter to family and friends and clothing the narrator apparently planned to wear “tomorrow.”
The firearms shown are a rifle, a shotgun and two handguns. At times menacing and laughing maniacally, and at other times quietly apologizing to family, the narrator speaks about plans to injure children without remorse, invoking the names of a multinational investment company, an oil company and a beer company, as well as a Second Amendment activist running for Congress in Texas.
Words, phrases and drawings had been scrawled in marker all over the weapons and magazines, some of the messages antisemitic, one reading “kill Donald Trump.” The narrator displays a four-page letter to friends and family that says to the narrator’s parents: “I’m sorry I didn’t turn out as you had hoped.”
There are references to a pedophile and a rapist, and hostility about Christianity, including the image of Jesus on a shooting target and phrases scrawled on the guns such as “Where’s your God now?”
— Deena Winter
2:25 p.m. - Pope Leo has
sent a message of support to the families impacted by the deadly shooting today.
“At this extremely difficult time, the Holy Father imparts to the Annunciation Catholic School community, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis and the people of the greater Twin Cities metropolitan area his apostolic blessing as a pledge of peace, fortitude and consolation in the Lord Jesus,” said a telegram sent to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
2:15 p.m. - Bernard Hebda, archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, announced that all are invited to a prayer service at 7 p.m. today at the Academy of Holy Angels, 6600 Nicollet Ave, in Richfield.
Hebda noted that prayers have been coming in to the archdiocese from Pope Leo and “so many from all around the globe, all praying for the families of Annunciation Parish and School and for all who were impacted by this morning’s senseless violence.”
— Paul Walsh
2:10 p.m. - Prayers and condolences filled Annunciation Catholic School’s
Facebook page from fellow parents, alumni, schools and local businesses, all looking to offer support the only way they could. But one empathetic parent spoke from experience: “I get it. Unfortunately. I am so very sorry. The days, weeks, months will not be easy; but you will make it through. Cling to the Cross. You are not alone, there are others who know what you are going through. We love you. We got you. God bless each of you.”
— Nicole Hvidsten
2 p.m. - Academy of Holy Angels, a private Catholic high school in Richfield, canceled all after-school activities today. Dave Marshak, Holy Angels girls soccer coach, said that no conversations about rescheduling have happened yet and that “this is not an easy day for us.”
Holy Angels also postponed tomorrow’s boys varsity game vs. Washburn High School. “Our hearts are heavy, and our prayers are with the students, staff, families, and community directly impacted by today’s events,”
a statement on the Holy Angels boys soccer Instagram account said. Cristo Rey Jesuit High School and St. Agnes School also postponed scheduled games.
On Tuesday around 1:30 p.m., a shooter killed one man and wounded six people near the intersection of E. 29th Street and Clinton Avenue, right behind Cristo Rey in Minneapolis’ Phillips neighborhood. “With what happened yesterday, we wanted to give it a few hours,” St. Agnes athletics and activities director Michael Streitz said. “It was a mutual thing between the two schools.”
— Alicia Eler and Cassidy Hettesheimer
1:57 p.m. - Within five hours of the shooting, President Donald Trump ordered American flags throughout the United States be flown at half-staff at the White House and “all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government” until sunset Sunday.
— Paul Walsh
1:43 p.m. - Vincent Francoual got a call this morning from his wife that there was a shooting at the school where his 12-year-old daughter attends 6th grade. After reuniting with her, they walked back home through the neighborhood. “We go that way every morning and saw them going to the church, because that’s what they do, they go to the church every Wednesday morning,” said Francoual, a prominent Twin Cities chef. Francoual said his daughter was friendly with one of the victims.
“We just found out who it was, and now Chloe, our daughter, is starting to tell us what she thinks happened, and now she feels guilty. So, we are into a new territory” as parents, he said. “It’s one of those moments that we just need to be vulnerable, but knowing we have no answer.” Francoual praised Annunciation staff’s response. “They locked the door of the church, and good thing it was locked, because God knows what would have happened if not,” he said.
— Sharyn Jackson
1:38 p.m. - Endre Gunter, Jr., was in the school year’s first 8:15 a.m. Wednesday Mass when he looked out the church window and saw the shooter coming.
“Then he heard boom, boom, boom,” according to his grandmother Denise Roberts, who spoke with him after surgery. “A girl next to him got hit in the head. He saw flesh fly. Endre was shot in the stomach.”
Roberts was among family members keeping vigil at HCMC Wednesday.
“He’s groggy but he’s resting,” she said. “They cut him open to remove bullet fragments.” Roberts’ son is the boy’s father. She said that she never sees Endre Sr. cry, but Wednesday was different. “It’s been one bag of bawling,” Roberts said. She added that her daughter-in-law Danielle Gunter also is in shock. “I don’t know if she will ever let Endre out of her sight again,” Roberts said. “He’s such a polite boy,” she said, ”he thanked us all for coming.”
— Rohan Preston
1:32 p.m. - A YouTube video posted Wednesday morning and attributed to Robin Westman shows a person muttering and flipping through pages of a notebook filled with indiscernible writings. At the end, the person says, “This will just look like another video on the day that catches you all up.”
The person then flips to an image diagramming the inside of a church with rows of pews. The person stabs a knife through the diagram, saying “That’s all, that’s all I do. I fall, I break and I die.”
Another video purportedly from Westman appears to show a lengthy apology note to family and friends, saying, “I don’t expect forgiveness and I don’t expect any apology. I have to hold much weight, but to my friends and those close to me, I do apologize for the effect my actions will have on your lives.”
— Jeff Day
1:20 p.m. - Kristen Painter, business editor for the Minnesota Star Tribune, has a second-grade daughter and a preschool son who attend the school. Her son was sick and stayed home from school on Wednesday. After dropping her daughter off and getting to work, Painter got word of the shooting.
“It sounds so cliché, but it’s your worst nightmare,” she said. “You live the worst of that nightmare until you see your child, but then it’s like you’re still trying to wake up.”
Painter rushed to the school and was brought into the basement gymnasium with other parents to reunite with their children. Many students were crying, Painter said, while others were silent and looked terrified. They said children and teachers dropped to the ground during the shooting, taking cover under the pews. Painter’s daughter told her mom that the church is ruined and she is scared to go back. “She had come home from the first day of school on Monday so excited,” Painter said. Painter said the school’s strong sense of community and connection to the south Minneapolis neighborhood is the reason she and her husband chose it. But Painter also remembers thinking: Were there additional safety concerns for a religious school?
“I don’t blame the school,” Painter said, adding that she felt the school followed safety protocols and communicated well with families.
— Mara Klecker
