Investigators say that the attackers who were on fire on the students were praying in a church in Miniapolis.
According to Miniapolis police chief Brian O’Hara, the attacker, killing two children at the age of eight and 10, and 18 others were injured.
She “appeared to hate all of us”, the chief said on Thursday, “More than anything, the shooter wanted to kill the children”.
The officials have so far released some details about the background of the suspect, but say that she first studied in the church school and there was a mother who worked there.
The suspect, known as Robin Westman, is believed to have approached the edge of the Announcement Church, which also has a school, and using three firearms to remove dozens of shots through windows. The police also found a smoke bomb at the scene.
The witnesses have described the children to see bleeding because they fled from the church, begging for the help of strangers.
At a news conference on Thursday, the American Attorney General for Minnesota Joseph Thompson said, “The shooter expressed hatred to several groups including the Jewish community and including President Trump.”
The killer left a note at the scene after taking his life, the officials said, but they said that a certain purpose could never be known.
Mr. Thompson said, “I will not dignity the words of the attacker by repeating them, they are frightening and monotonous.”
Westman’s name was legally converted from Robert to Robin in 2020, in which the judge writes: “The minor child identifies as a woman”. However, some federal officials and police have referred to Westman as a person while discussing the attack.
Chief O’Hara told reporters that news outlets should stop using the killer’s name, as “the purpose of the shooter’s actions was to get notorious.”
He said that he, “Like so many other collective shooters that we have seen many times in this country and worldwide, there was some deranged attraction with a last large -scale firing”.
US authorities have warned over the years that large -scale shooting may kill copying, as the killers want to be famous through their heinous crimes.
Many major news organizations have a policy of not identifying large -scale killers.
FBI director Kash Patel described the attack as “a function of domestic terrorism inspired by hatred ideology”.
In a post on X, Patel said that the attacker left the gun and abandoned “many anti-catholic, anti-religious references” in the notes exposed by the investigators.
He wrote, “The subject expressed hatred and violence to the Jewish people, writing to Israel,” free Palestine, “and using the clear language related to Holocaust,” he wrote.
The killer also wrote a clear call for violence against President Trump on a gun magazine “.
At his news conference, the authorities confirmed that the attacker had earlier attended school. His mother, Mary Grace Westman, worked at school earlier, and has not yet responded to the efforts of law enforcement to contact him.
He also confirmed that the three residences associated with the attacker, which were from suburban Miniapolis, were discovered by the police.
He said that the church closed its doors before starting its collective service, it is probably likely to save the lives of many people.
Officials said the guns used in the attack were all legally purchased, that the killer did not appear to be on any government wax, and the police did not know about any mental health diagnosis or treatment that he was receiving.
Witnesses and relatives of the victims who talk to the BBC have described the annoying scenes of violence.
The Patrick Companive, who lives near the church, said that he saw three children running away from the building – one of them with a head wound.
“She kept saying,” Please hold my hand, don’t leave me “, and I said I was not going anywhere.”
The Vincent Frankol, who was in the 11 -year -old daughter, was in the Church, when she was shot, she said that she did not try to panic after hearing the news.
He called it “sick” that children in America are trained to prepare for large -scale firing.
“We live in a country where we train children what to do. And he did what he had to do,” he said.
“This is a pattern here. It’s no longer a eccentric accident,” he said about school shooting in America.
“I told my wife that every morning, when we leave our children, we do not know if it will be safe.”
Mr. Frankol, who is originally from France, said that Cloe is afraid of returning to school or church.
In view of the attack, several MPs, including the mayor of Miniapolis, have called the state to ban weapons attacking the state.
“There is no reason that one should be able to reel 30 shots before they have to load again,” the Mayor Jacob Frey said, high -capacity is also asked to ban the ammo with high capacity.
“We are not talking about your father’s hunting rifle here. We are talking about the guns that Pierce is made to kill armor and people.”
