MINNEAPOLIS (LifeSiteNews) — The perpetrator of Wednesday morning’s shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minnesota appears to be a gender-confused individual with extreme ideological grievances, according to public records and a video published online.
At least 20 were hit by bullets fired into the church before authorities reported the situation “contained,” including two preteen children who have died so far.
The New York Post reports that the perpetrator has been identified as early-twentysomething Robin Westman, who killed himself on the scene. CBS News reports that Westman’s mother was a “former employee” of the school who retired several years prior. Annunciation announced the retirement of a Mary Grace Westman in 2021.
The Post notes that authorities are investigating whether Westman was behind YouTube videos published hours before the attack, in which the perpetrator displays an “obsession with mass shooters – including Sandy Hook killer Adam Lanza,” flips through a notebook filled with text in both English and Russian (and what appears to be a diagram of a church), and displays numerous weapons and ammunition magazines with various messages scrawled on them, including “The Big One,” “F**k Everything That You Stand For,” “For the Children,” “Where Is Your God,” and “Kill Donald Trump.”
Alleged suspect recorded a lengthy video laying out weapons and what possibly is a drawing of the shooting location where he stabbed it with a knife saying “where I kill myself”. pic.twitter.com/Dkq2nBabMA
— Rob O’Donnell (@odonnell_r) August 27, 2025
Journalist Ryan Saavedra highlights more messages covering weapons in the video, including “Humanity Is Overrated,” “Kill Trump Now,” “Israel Must Fall,” “6 Million Wasn’t Enough” (apparently referring to the Nazi Holocaust), and “McVeigh,” (Timothy, the 1995 Oklahoma City bomber).
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) August 27, 2025
The notebook also featured a “Defend Equality” sticker, with a picture of a rifle in front of an LGBT “pride” flag. Washington Free Beacon editor Peter Hasson reports that records show Westman legally changed his name from “Robert” to “Robin” in 2020, while still a minor, for the stated reason that he “identifies as a female and wants her [sic] name to reflect that identification.”
Robin Westman legally changed name from Robert Westman as a minor in 2020. Application said the then-teen “identifies as a female and wants her [sic] name to reflect that identification.” pic.twitter.com/AZhLVYy2yb
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) August 27, 2025
“Our hearts are broken for the families who have lost their children, for these young lives who are fighting to recover, and for our entire community,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said. “This was a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshipping. The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible.”
“May the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced for our salvation, pour out His mercy upon the dead, His healing upon the injured, and His consolation upon every family and loved one afflicted by this tragedy,” responded Cardinal Raymond Burke. “Let us, with renewed faith, pray for the conversion of hearts, that such acts of hatred may be transformed into occasions of grace, and that our nation may rediscover the path of peace found only in obedience to the law of God written upon every human heart, the law whose first precept is the safeguarding and care of human life.”
Though downplayed by the mainstream media, transgender violence is nothing new. This summer, 18-year-old “Felix” Winter, a girl identifying as male, was sentenced to six years in prison after admitting to two charges related to planning a school shooting in the U.K. In 2023, gender-confused female Audrey “Aidan” Hale murdered six people at a Presbyterian private school in Tennessee.
