2 Kids Killed, 17 People Hurt in Minneapolis Church Shooting

Assailant fired three guns through windows of parish school church during service

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MINNEAPOLIS — An assailant armed with three guns fired through stained-glass windows into a church where parish school students were attending Mass on Aug. 27, killing two children, aged eight and 10, and wounding 17 other people, officials said.

The shooting ended when the lone suspect, identified as Robin Westman, 23, "took his own life" at the rear of the church, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara, who declined to offer a possible motive for the attack.

A videotaped message by the suspect showed Westman struggled with depression and was fascinated by the perpetrators of past mass shootings.

FBI director Kash Patel said his agency was investigating the attack as an "act of domestic terrorism and hate crime targeting Catholics".

The two victims who died were slain where they sat as the gunfire turned the morning service into pandemonium.

It sent worshippers diving behind pews for cover while older children scrambled to shield younger ones, officials said. At least two of the church exits were blocked by wooden planks barricaded outside the doors, Mr. O'Hara said.

The violence struck at the start of an all-school Mass held annually on the first Wednesday of the academic year at Annunciation Catholic School.

"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," Mr. O'Hara said.