Minneapolis shooter ultimately wanted ‘notoriety’ from church attack, police chief reveals

Authorities in Minneapolis revealed more details about the motive of Annunciation Catholic Church shooter Robin Westman, with the city’s police chief saying that “ultimately the purpose of the shooter’s actions was to obtain notoriety for the shooter themselves.” 

Brian O’Hara made the remark after telling reporters that “no evidence ever be able to make sense” of the mass shooting that left two children dead and 18 others injured Wednesday. However, he said, the Minneapolis Police Department “will do our best to determine and identify a specific motive.” 

“What we have seen so far is this is an individual who, unfortunately, like so many other mass shooters that we have seen in this country too often and around the world, had some deranged fascination with previous mass shootings and very disturbing writings that demonstrate hatred towards many different individuals and different groups of people,” O’Hara said. “And he fantasized about the plans of other mass shooters.” 

Acting United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota Joe Thompson said Thursday that Westman left behind “hundreds of pages of writings, writings that describe the shooter’s plan, writings that describe the shooter’s mental state, and, more than anything, writings that describe the shooter’s hate. 

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“The shooter expressed hate towards almost every group imaginable. The shooter expressed hate towards Black people. The shooter expressed hate towards Mexican people. The shooter expressed hate towards Christian people. The shooter expressed hate towards Jewish people,” Thompson continued. “In short, the shooter appeared to hate all of us. The shooter’s heart was full of hate. There appears to be only one group that the shooter didn’t hate. One group of people who the shooter admired. That group were the school shooters and mass murderers that are notorious in this country.” 

Thompson also said Westman, “more than anything,” was focused on killing children. 

“The shooter was obsessed with the idea of killing children. The shooter saw the attack as a way to target our most vulnerable among us, while they were at their most vulnerable at school and at church,” he added. 

The mass shooting claimed the lives of Fletcher Merkel, 8, and Harper Moyski, 10. 

“Fifteen of the injured are children between the ages of 6 and 15. Three of those injured are adults in their 80s,” O’Hara said Thursday. “Those who remain hospitalized need all of our support as we continue to pray for a speedy recovery for all of our victims.” 

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O’Hara also mentioned how Westman had previously attended Mass at the Annunciation Catholic Church and that his mother “was an employee of the parish previously for some time.” 

However, he added, “we have not identified a triggering event or a specific grievance against the church that you could point to, to say ‘this is the reason for why this happened.’” 

Wednesday’s mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church draws parallels to the Covenant School massacre – a targeted March 2023 attack on a Christian school in Nashville, Tenn., by a transgender shooter who killed three third-graders and three adults. 

“The stark reality is that mass shooters read about and study their predecessors before committing their own carnage,” Don Aaron, a spokesman for the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department, told Fox News Digital. 

“We know the shooter in the Covenant case did, as she planned her attack over a period of many months. She went through firearms training during that period without setting off alarms. She had no adverse contact with law enforcement prior to the day of the shooting,” he said. 

“After a lengthy investigation, the shooter’s quest for notoriety was deemed to be the motive,” Aaron added. “She wanted her bedroom to be preserved and movies and books to be made about her. That is why it is so important to make the victims the focus of public statements in the days, weeks, and years after these horrible crimes. Most people, especially law enforcement, do not  want to publicly focus on the shooter’s twisted planning so that it does not influence others.” 

Fox News Digital’s Michael Ruiz, Sarah Rumpf-Whitten and Jon Street contributed to this report.