Minneapolis Mayor Slams Anti-Trans Hate After School Shooting

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey excoriated transphobes for tying a mass shooting to their hateful ideology.

At a press conference Wednesday about the Annunciation Catholic School shooting Wednesday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called out groups and individuals for attacking the trans community in the wake of the horrific event.

“Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity,” Frey said. “We should not be operating out of a place of hate for anyone. We should be operating from a place of our love for kids … kids died today,” he said.

The FBI identified the shooter as 23-year-old Robin Westman, who graduated from the school in 2017. Westman killed two children—an 8- and 10-year-old—when she opened fire on the building at the beginning of mass, wounding 14 other children between the ages of six and 15. Three adults in their 80s were also injured.

Authorities announced during the press briefing that they expected all the other victims to recover, though they emphasized their varying degrees of injury.

Westman was found dead from self-inflicted injuries Wednesday morning, police told CNN.

Police officers in the city are “deeply traumatized” by what they saw, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told reporters. Westman’s weapons were purchased legally and were “purchased recently,” according to O’Hara.

During the same press conference, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz stressed that children in the community had arrived at Annunciation Wednesday morning to learn and be curious, but were instead met with “evil and horror and death.”

“There shouldn’t be words for these types of incidents, because they should not happen,” Walz said.”There’s no words that are going to ease the pain of the families today.”