AP Photo/Abbie Parr Law enforcement officers gather outside the Annunciation Church's school in response to a reported mass shooting, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025, in Minneapolis.

MINNEAPOLIS — A shooter opened fire Wednesday morning during Mass at a Minneapolis Catholic school, killing two children and injuring 17 other people before killing himself, officials said. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the shooter — armed with a rifle, shotgun and pistol — approached the side of the church and shot through the windows toward the children sitting in the pews during Mass at the Annunciation Catholic School.

The school was evacuated, and students’ families were later directed to a “reunification zone” at the school. President Donald Trump and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said in separate social media posts that they had been briefed on the shooting.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz posted on X: “Minnesota is heartbroken. From the officers responding, to the clergy and teachers providing comfort, to the hospital staff saving lives, we will get through this together. Hug your kids close.” Hennepin Healthcare, the main trauma hospital in Minneapolis, said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that they received 10 patients, including eight children — aged 6 through 14 — and two adults. Seven were considered to be in critical condition. Children’s Minnesota, a pediatric trauma hospital, said it admitted seven children ages 9 through 16.

Authorities say the shooter is believed to have acted alone. The police chief said the shooter was in his early 20s, did not have an extensive known criminal history and is believed to have acted alone, but did not release the name or information on possible connections to the school. A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that authorities have identified the shooter as Robin Westman. That official was not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Michael Simpson said his 10-year-old grandson, Weston Halsne, was nicked by a bullet as he sat by the church windows on Wednesday. His voice shaking as he left the area around the school, Simpson said the violence during Mass on the third day of school left him wondering whether God was watching over. “I don’t know where He is,” Simpson said. Aubrey Pannhoff, a 16-year-old student at a nearby Catholic school, stood crying just outside the police cordon around Annunciation Catholic School. She went on a mission trip to Colorado with Annunciation earlier this summer and to the school after her own school’s lockdown and prayer service. “I’m just asking him (God) why right now. It’s little kids,” she said. One of her mission trip leaders’ children was grazed by a bullet, Pannhoff said, and she doesn’t know how the other teachers are. “It’s just really hard for me to take in.”

Trump has spoken with Walz, the White House said. That follows the president opting not to speak to Walz, who was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in last year’s election against Trump, when a gunman killed one Minnesota state lawmaker and wounded another in meticulously planned attacks earlier this year. Trump also said in a previous social media post that he had been briefed on the “tragic shooting” and that the White House would continue to monitor it.

The shooting comes 2 months after the top Democrat in the state House was killed. The June 14 shootings in the northern Minneapolis suburbs left former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, dead. A state senator and his wife were also seriously injured. Authorities say they were attacked at their homes by a man disguised as a police officer.

The police chief said the shooting was a “deliberate act of violence against innocent children.”

“The sheer cruelty and cowardice, firing into a church full of children, is absolutely incomprehensible,” O’Hara said during the briefing. He said the suspect is believed to have fired all 3 weapons: a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol. He said it appears all or most of the shooting was done from outside. Police found no casings inside.

The police chief said dozens of children were inside the mass at the time of the shooting. Two children, ages 8 and 10, were killed where they sat in the pews, he added. Seventeen other people were wounded — 14 of them children, the police chief said.