Two children killed in US school Mass shooting
Two children were killed and 17 others were injured when a shooter opened fire on a church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during Mass on Wednesday. Other victims, including 14 children and three adults, were expected to survive, authorities said.
Local authorities have not yet discerned a motive for the attack and said the shooter – armed with a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol – took his own life and appears to have acted alone. The FBI said that it is probing the attack as a potential act of terrorism.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, since the beginning of 2025, there have already been 286 mass shootings—defined as cases in which four or more people are shot or killed—in the United States, averaging more than one per day.
Gun violence is the number-one killer of children in the US, causing more deaths each year than car accidents, poisonings, and cancer. The victims of the shooting in Minneapolis join the more than 800 children killed and more than 2,200 injured by firearms this year.
The assailant Robin Westman, was in their 20s and identifies as a transgender woman. Dozens of rounds were fired during the attack, during which the gunman, dressed in black clothing, stood outside the church and fired in through the windows as schoolchildren were seated in the pews.
“This was a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshipping,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a news conference. “The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible.”
Pope Leo XIV, the first pope from the US, called the shooting a “terrible tragedy” and said he was praying for the victims during an “extremely difficult time”.
Kash Patel, the Trump-appointed director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), has said that the agency is probing the attack as a possible hate crime targeting Catholics.
“I’m praying for our kids and teachers whose first week of school was marred by this horrific act of violence,” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said in a social media post.
