A shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis left two children dead and 17 others injured on Wednesday morning, with witnesses describing terrifying scenes during Mass on the third day of the school year.
Eyewitnesses recounted moments of panic and confusion as gunfire rang out. Brian, who was having breakfast with his daughter nearby, initially thought the noise was from construction work.
“I was eating breakfast with my daughter this morning when we started hearing some bangs. At first, we thought it was just construction noise because there’s a project nearby. But the pace of the shots quickly became too rapid, then there was a brief pause, followed by another quick burst. It didn’t sound like hammers and nails at all,” Brian told ABC News.
Brian said he immediately suspected gunfire and looked out the windows with his daughter, trying to see what was happening nearby.
Clarissa Garcia, a fifth-grade student, said, “I was just at church and I heard something really loud. I thought it was fireworks in the church, and then I saw the shooting, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m so scared.’”
Ten-year-old Weston Halsne, who was sitting near the stained glass windows where the shots rang out, told Fox News he narrowly escaped injury.
“The shots were right next to me. I think I even got some gunpowder on my neck,” he said.
He also recounted how his friend was hit while trying to protect him. “My friend helped me run out. He saw the shooter, who was wearing all black and a ski mask. I was down, so I didn’t really look up. The shooter fired through the stained glass windows, and then my friend Victor was laying on top of me to keep me safe; he got hit, too. That was really brave of him,” Weston added.
Authorities identified the shooter as 23-year-old Robin Westman, who then killed themselves at the scene. Police said Westman fired dozens of rounds from legally purchased firearms. At least two church doors had been barricaded from the outside.
“This was a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshiping. The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible,” Minneapolis Police chief Brian O’Hara said.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey warned against using the incident to target transgender people, saying that Westman had changed their name in 2020 after identifying as female.
“Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainise our trans community, or any other community out there, has lost their sense of common humanity,” he said.
