Aug. 27, 2026:
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Documents released a year after the deadly shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic church and school detail a swift response by authorities but reveal little about the motive for the attack. Students were attending Mass at Annunciation Church on Aug. 27, 2025, when 23-year-old Robin Westman fired shots from outside. Two children — 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski — were killed and at least 21 other children and adults were wounded before Westman died by suicide. This week, city officials released nearly 1,500 photos and hundreds of pages from the investigation. City officials said more documents or videos could be released in coming weeks.
Sept. 5, 2025:
ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. (AP) — The shooter who killed two schoolchildren and injured 21 other people at a Catholic church in Minneapolis visited a suburban gun shop the weekend before the attack, but the owner of the store said Thursday (Sept. 4, 2025) that his staff saw no warning signs in their interactions.
Gun store owner Kory Krause told The Associated Press that Robin Westman spent around 40 minutes at Frontiersman Sports in St. Louis Park on Aug. 23 and appeared completely at ease. A surveillance video showed Westman examined several guns before ultimately buying a revolver.
Westman had already passed the required background checks and had a valid permit to purchase the gun, Krause said.
The revolver wasn’t one of the guns Westman used in the shootings at the Church of the Annunciation on Aug. 27, when it was full of students from the affiliated Annunciation Catholic School who had gathered for their first Mass of the academic year. Investigators recovered a semiautomatic assault-style rifle, a shotgun and a different handgun at the scene, and said Westman was legally entitled to buy them. Krause said none came from his store.
Westman, 23, attended the school for eighth grade and Westman’s mother formerly worked for the parish, but investigators are still trying to determine a motive. Westman died by suicide after firing 116 rifle rounds through the church’s stained-glass windows.
As first reported by KSTP-TV, the security video shows Westman handling several firearms and talking with employees and other customers. Krause wasn’t in the store at the time, but he said he promptly shared the video with investigators and is cooperating with them.
Krause stressed that nothing in Westman’s conduct raised any concerns among his staffers, who he said are trained to watch for warning signs.
“This person said all the right things, they checked all the right boxes, asked all the questions, they were friendly, talkative, making jokes, laughing, knowledgeable about guns, handled a lot of guns that were not the type of guns you would think are of the interest of somebody looking to do a mass shooting,” Krause told the AP.
Krause said his employees have extensive experience in picking out bad actors, straw purchasers, people who are homicidal, suicidal, mentally unstable or under the influence of alcohol or drugs. He said nothing stood out with Westman.
“We’re still going over it,” Krause said. “We’re still scratching our heads thinking, ‘What did we miss? What could we have done?’ But it always ends with the answer of ‘nothing.’ There was just nothing there. And that’s what makes this situation so unique.”
A mother’s plea
At a news conference Thursday at Hennepin Healthcare, a trauma hospital that treated several victims, Annunciation parent Malia Kimbrell delivered a wrenching account about her daughter’s injuries and implored lawmakers to ban assault weapons.
Her 9-year-old daughter, Vivian St. Clair, was shot three times: twice in the back and once in the arm. The girl, who had been in intensive care, is now recovering at home.
“Her friend said to her, ‘Vivi, are you OK? You have a hole in your back,’” Kimbrell recounted.
Kimbrell, a nurse in the hospital’s newborn intensive care unit, challenged lawmakers to ban the kind of high-powered rifles and high capacity magazines used by the shooter, saying she will “settle for nothing less.”
“I will get the names of any lawmakers who stand in the way of that happening, and I will invite you to come to my living room and insist that you hold Vivian’s hand while we do her dressing changes each night and she cries the entire time,” she said. “Action is our only hope. Thinking and praying are what you do after a tragedy. Taking action is what we can do before the next tragedy occurs.”
The politics of change
Democratic Gov. Tim Walz said Tuesday he intends to call a special session of the Minnesota Legislature to address gun and school safety, and he suggested that an assault weapons ban would be on his list of proposals, which he is still developing. But it would be very difficult for anything to pass the closely divided Legislature without at least some bipartisan support.
House Republicans on Thursday released a list of proposals that lack any restrictions on access to firearms. It calls for increased funding for school security and for school resources officers, including for private schools. The proposals would also prohibit districts from banning school resource officers, as Minneapolis and some other districts have done.
The House GOP also called for more mental health treatment beds and mandatory minimum prison sentences for repeat criminals who use guns and for straw purchasers of firearms that are used in violent crimes.
Students Demand Action, an arm of Everytown for Gun Safety, is organizing school walkouts across the country for Friday to demand that state and federal lawmakers ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Sept. 3, 2025:
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday (Sept. 3, 2025) met with families and victims of a shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis that killed two schoolchildren and injured 21 people.
Security was heavy outside Annunciation Catholic Church ahead of the visit by Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, and second lady Usha Vance. The visit comes one week after an attacker opened fire during the first Mass of the school year for students of the nearby Annuciation Catholic School.
“They will hold a series of private meetings to convey condolences to the families of those affected by the tragedy,” the White House said in a statement but released few other details.
After arriving at the church, the Vances stood in front of a memorial and laid bouquets amid the numerous other flowers before walking to meet the families.
Some family and neighbors gathered across the street as the Vances arrived at the church, holding signs calling for bans on assault weapons. One read, “Pro-Life = Pro-Gun Safety.” Another read, “When you pray, move your feet,” a popular phrase from people who say thoughts and prayers are not enough.
“Nothing is happening,” said Kacie Sharpe, whose 8-year-old son, Trip, was sitting near one of children who was killed. “And it keeps happening over and over and over — and nothing changes. And it’s the most helpless feeling in the world to know that you can’t send your kids to school and have them be safe.”
Vance made no public statement after the meeting, which lasted roughly an hour and 45 minutes. As he left, his motorcade rolled past a few dozen protesters, several holding signs saying, “Hate Won’t Make America Great.”
Archbishop Bernard Hebda of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis told Minnesota Public Radio earlier Thursday that he apparently didn’t make the cut for invitations and wouldn’t be there. But Hebda, who has met with the families himself, welcomed Vance’s visit.
“I was happy to hear that the parents were interested in meeting with the vice president,” Hebda told MPR. “I know they’ve met with other politicians as well, and I think it gives an opportunity for them to put a face on this great tragedy.”
Hebda also said it has been edifying to see all the prayers and other support from Pope Leo and other clergy, the community and beyond, for all the families whose children attend Annuciation.
“For them to have the opportunity to share, up close, with the vice president and his wife, as they’ve done with our governor and our senator and our mayor, I think is a great opportunity to educate about what occurred and then to begin planning for how we can move forward,” the archbishop said.
The shooter, 23-year-old Robin Westman, died by suicide after firing 116 rifle rounds through the church’s stained-glass windows last Wednesday as hundreds of students and others gathered for worship.
While investigators say they have not found a clear motive for the attack, the shooter had connections to the school. Westman’s mother worked for the parish before retiring in 2021, and Westman once attended the school.
Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said last week that the shooter left behind videos and writings that “expressed hate towards almost every group imaginable” but admiration for mass killers.
The school has not said when classes will resume or a ceremony will be held to essentially reconsecrate the church so that worship can resume there. The church celebrated its Masses last weekend in the school gym.
One of the children who was injured, 10-year-old Weston Halsne, had surgery Wednesday to remove a bullet fragment from his neck, his family said in a statement issued through Children’s Hospital of Minneapolis.
“The procedure went well, and Weston is expected to make a full physical recovery,” they said.
Weston, a 5th grader, didn’t realize he was hit at the time. He told reporters after the shots blasted through the windows that he ducked for the pews, covering his head.
“My friend Victor like saved me though because he laid on top of me. But he got hit,” he said.
Aug. 28, 2025:
RICHFIELD, Minn. (AP) — Investigators are examining the videos, writings and movements of the shooter who fired through the windows of a Catholic church in Minneapolis, killing two children and wounding 17 people. They’re looking for connections to the church and its school to understand the motivation for the attack. Police Chief Brian O’Hara says Robin Westman fired dozens of rounds toward Annunciation Catholic School students sitting in the pews during Mass on Wednesday morning. He says the shooter then died by suicide. Hours later, hundreds crowded inside a nearby school’s gym, clutching one another and wiping away tears during a vigil. Archbishop Bernard Hebda told a crowd of mourners Wednesday night that students tried to shield their classmates as the gunfire erupted.
Aug. 27, 2025:
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A shooter opened fire Wednesday morning (Aug. 27, 2025) during Mass at a Minneapolis Catholic school, killing two children and injuring 17 other people before killing himself, officials said.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the shooter — armed with a rifle, shotgun and pistol — approached the side of the church and shot through the windows toward the children sitting in the pews during Mass at the Annunciation Catholic School.
The school was evacuated, and students’ families were later directed to a “reunification zone” at the school. President Donald Trump and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said in separate social media posts that they had been briefed on the shooting.
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