Annunciation school shooting investigated by FBI as ‘hate crime targeting Catholics’

The shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis is being investigated by the FBI as an anti-Catholic hate crime.

Two children, aged eight and 10, were killed when an attacker opened fire through the windows of Annunciation Church as school children and adult worshippers were celebrating Mass on the morning of 27 August to mark the first week back at school after the summer break.

"The FBI is investigating this shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and hate crime targeting Catholics," FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X.

He concluded his message by saying: "The FBI will continue to provide updates on our ongoing investigation with the public as we are able."

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The shooter, who died beside the church from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, was later named by police as 23-year-old Robin Westman.

Police Chief Brian O'Hara told reporters: "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," he said.

Authorities have not yet released a suspected motive for the attack, though it has emerged that the shooter was a male who self-identified as a "trans woman" and had in 2020 officially changed his birth name of Robert to Robin on the basis of identifying as "female".

The revelations have led to questions around gender dysphoria and mental health, and whether that should be getting as much, if not more, attention as the issue of gun violence and accessibility to fire arms in the US, as the country tries to process and understand another horrific mass shooting occurring at a school.

A now-deleted YouTube account believed to belong to Westman featured what is being reported as a type of "manifesto" video that aired hours before the shooting. In the video can be seen a drawing of a church and a person repeatedly stabbing the paper on which it was drawn. In the same drawing of the church are outlines of multiple box shapes laid out in a neat pattern, which could represent coffins.

Other video clips posted to the YouTube account show gun parts, a semi-automatic rifle, a shotgun and various gun magazines with messages scrawled on them.

One video clip shows what appears to be a target, typically used on a gun range, with an image of the head of Christ wearing the crown of thorns put on the head area of the target.

The Catholic News Agency (CNA) reports that below the image of Christ's head was displayed the text: “He came to pay a debt he didn’t owe because we owe a debt we cannot repay."

It adds that the individual pointing the camera at the shooting target, believed to be Westman, then laughed before moving the camera to show anti-Christian messages and drawings on his guns and loaded magazines.

One message scrawled on a rifle states “take this all of you and eat", mocking the words Jesus said at the Last Supper and the words said in the Eucharistic prayer during every Mass, CNA notes.

It also reports that Westman drew an inverted pentagram on one of the gun magazines, explaining that the symbol is often used to promote Satanism and also sometimes used in other occult practices. The number “666” was also written on the gun magazine.

An inverted cross was drawn on the barrel of one of the rifles, which is a traditional Christian symbol that has since been co-opted by Satanists.

The person filming the video at one point sings the word “tomorrow” while also saying: “I’m sorry to my family … that’s the only people I’m sorry to. “I regret everything. I didn’t ask for life. You didn’t ask for death.”

Among the various gun magazines with messages scrawled on them, one reads: “For the children"; another reads: "Where is your God?"

RELATED: Shooter at Annunciation Catholic School self-identified as ‘trans’

Photo: FBI Director Kash Patel speaks during a news conference held by US President Donald Trump to discuss crime in Washington, DC, in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Washington, DC, 11 August 2025. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images.)

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