A transgender woman went on a mass shooting rampage, killing two children and injuring 17 others from the Annunciation Catholic School who were attending Mass at their church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Wednesday, 27 August.
The gunman was quickly identified in the press as 22-year-old Robin Westman, a biological man identifying as a woman who had changed his first name from Robert to Robin. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara has told reporters at a press conference that ‘I have no information to share on a motive,’ which spurred some backlash online, as by that time, some of the shooter’s social media posts had been found by the public, with clear indications of what his motive was.
The killer has posted videos to his social media showing off his guns with ‘kill Donald Trump’ and ‘for the children’ written on their magazines. In other disturbing videos, he is seen reading out loud his handwritten manifesto. He has also talked about his fascination with the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
‘The killer has posted videos to his social media showing off his guns with “kill Donald Trump” written on their magazines’
On Wednesday morning, he went to Annunciation Catholic Church armed with a rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol, where around 200 children from Annunciation Catholic School were attending mass. He shot through the windows of the church. After killing two children, aged eight and ten, and injuring 17 more people, Westman committed suicide on the scene by gunshot.
Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis sparked further controversy after the tragedy when he spoke about transgender rights at a press conference of his own on Wednesday afternoon. ‘Anybody who is using this…as an opportunity to villainize our trans community, or any other community out there, has lost their sense of common humanity. We should not be operating out of a place of hate for anyone,’ he stated, as quoted by the New York Post. He also spoke about the need for stricter gun control.
On Wednesday night, a large gathering took place at a local school gym where hundreds prayed, cried and comforted one another in response to the tragedy. Governor Tim Walz and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, along with local Catholic clergy, were present to support the grieving attendees.
This is not the first mass shooting committed by a transgender person in recent years. In March 2023, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, a biological woman who identified as a man, entered the Christian Creswell Middle School in Nashville, Tennessee, with two rifles, and shot five people dead, three students and two school staff members. The killer was a former student of the school. She was killed in a shootout with officers from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.
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