‘The shooter wanted to kill children’: Police still searching for motive in Annunciation attack

Robin Westman brimmed with hatred.

In raving videos and coded manifestos, the 23-year-old unleashed torrents of rage toward Jews, Christians, Mexicans and Black people alike.

But Westman obsessed over punishing one group above all others, authorities say.

“The shooter wanted to kill children — defenseless children,” said Joe Thompson, Minnesota’s acting U.S. Attorney. “I won’t dignify the shooter’s words by repeating them. They are horrific and vile. But, in short, the shooter wanted to watch children suffer.”

The toll of death and injury from Westman opening fire into a back-to-school Mass for Minneapolis’ Annunciation Catholic School is now up to 20, said Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who provided an update Thursday on the investigation with Thompson and other state and federal law enforcement leaders. That includes two children — identified as Fletcher Merkel, 8, and Harper Moyski, 10 — who died at the scene from gunshot wounds. Fifteen more kids, ages 6 to 15, were injured, plus three parishioners in their 80s. All of those injured are expected to survive, hospital officials said Thursday.

O’Hara said officers have recovered 116 rifle rounds from the church, along with three shotgun shells and a handgun that appears to have jammed during the attack. Westman died from a self-inflicted gunshot.

The group of city, state and federal law enforcement officials who are orchestrating the investigation said they were still poring through Westman’s journals, interviewing family members, executing search warrants and reviewing surveillance footage. But they had yet to find clear answers as to why Westman decided to target that church service. Nor have they found any red flags that could have warned authorities that an attack was imminent. They said the shooter did not have any serious criminal history or record of civil commitment for dangerous mental illness. Westman bought the guns legally and did not appear on any FBI watchlists for dangerous people, they said.

Investigators have conducted searches of homes and seized electronic devices and other evidence, and have interviewed Westman’s father, authorities said. They have not yet been able to interview the mother, they said.

Westman appeared to admire one group of people: mass murderers.

In journal entries written in the Cyrillic text, Westman praised the shooters in the Parkland, Columbine and other massacres, expressing a fascination with school shootings that went back to seventh grade.

While the motive is unclear, O’Hara said Westman fits into a pattern of killers who seek maximum carnage in order to obtain notoriety. For this reason, O’Hara said he’s refused to utter Westman’s name since first identifying the shooter publicly.

In an interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune, the chief said authorities are still searching for any event that may have led the shooter to target Annunciation — one of several schools Westman attended years ago, and where Westman’s mother once worked.

“What’s particularly heinous and cowardly about this is these children were slaughtered by a shooter who could not see them,” O’Hara said.

In interviews with the Star Tribune, survivors described the chaos that erupted.

When they first heard the popping sounds of the bullets, about 8:30 a.m., several said they thought it was fireworks or some kind of prank.

“Then the screams told you it wasn’t,” said one survivor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

One of the shots grazed 10-year-old Astoria Safe across the forehead, lodging bullet fragments in the top of her head that doctors have deemed too dangerous to remove. Astoria said she helped pull two other kids down next to her when the bullets started flying.

Vivian St. Clair, 9, was among those injured, according an online fundraising campaign started on behalf of her family. With a gunshot wound, she “ran from the church to the school gym, where a police officer scooped her up and rushed her to an ambulance.”

Libby Passa, 10, estimated the shots lasted about 20 seconds. Teachers told the children to cover their heads, even after the shooting stopped and silence filled the church. A music teacher started singing to keep the kids calm.

O’Hara said police started receiving calls about the shooting at 8:27 a.m. and the first officer arrived at 8:31 a.m. He said the officer rushed into the church in regular uniform, with no helmet or other SWAT gear. Someone directed the officer to where the shooter had been moments earlier.

“A parishioner later told me that was the first time that he, the children and others there had any sense they might be safe and survive,” O’Hara said.

On Thursday evening, every pew in the Basilica of St. Mary was filled as community members of all faiths gathered for a service to pray for the Annunciation families. Some knelt before sitting, quietly tracing the sign of the cross across their bodies.

Handwritten messages of support covered the crosses. “Fly high,” someone wrote on the 8-year-old’s cross. “You are loved,” someone wrote on the other.

On both was written, “We will miss you.”