The motive for Wednesday's mass shooting at a Minneapolis church full of children remains a mystery despite the "dark and violent writings and videos" the shooter left behind after taking her own life, the New York Times reports. In one video, Robin Westman, a 23-year-old transgender woman who formerly attended the Annunciation Church and Catholic School, showed a drawing of the church into which she fired bullets during the first all-school Mass of the school year. She barricaded the doors before firing through the church's windows, killing an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old. Another three adults and 14 children were injured, with one adult and five children in critical condition as of Thursday, per NBC News.
Videos also displayed a weapons cache featuring antisemitic and racist language and a threat against President Trump; diary entries "describing self hatred, violence against children, and a desire to inflict harm on herself"; and a sticker of LGBTQ and transgender flags overlaid with a gun and the words "Defend Equality," per the Times. The videos "paint a portrait of a person with a rambling and deeply nihilistic outlook" and "a series of grievances, anger and ideations of harm to self and to others," per ABC News. They also refer to personal depression.
Some right-wing conservatives have used the shooting to argue transgender people are violent or mentally ill—echoing the reaction to the 2023 mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, also carried out by a transgender former student—but Mayor Jacob Frey warned against scapegoating, saying anyone who does this "has lost their sense of common humanity." The archbishop of Chicago, meanwhile, drew attention to "a national mental health crisis" and the country's "plentiful" guns, noting "common sense attempts to limit their availability have been largely rejected," per NBC. "We therefore pray for those who hold the power to make the safety of our people a national priority," said Cardinal Blase Cupich.
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