Minneapolis school shooting updates: Robin Westman ‘wanted to watch children suffer’ as officials probe motive

“We are devastated to share that our beloved daughter, Harper Moyski, was tragically killed in the recent school shooting,” parents Michael Moyski and Jackie Flavin said in a statement to media outlets. “Harper was a bright, joyful, and deeply loved 10-year-old whose laughter, kindness, and spirit touched everyone who knew her.”

“Yesterday, a coward decided to take our 8-year-old son Fletcher away from us,” his father, Jesse, said at a press conference on Thursday. “Because of their actions, we will never be allowed to hold him, talk to him, play with him, and watch him grow into the wonderful young man he was on the path to becoming.”

MSNBC host Jen Psaki fired back at the White House and other conservative critics who have slammed her for saying “prayer is not freaking enough” in the wake of yet another mass shooting, calling the attacks “bad faith” and an effort to not address the issue of gun violence.

The FBI’s special agent in charge in Minneapolis, Alvin M. Winston Sr., said the agency had no prior contact with the shooter who killed two children and injured 15 others and three seniors on Wednesday.

“We did a check of all of our holdings, the FBI holdings, and he was not in our holdings prior to this incident, so we didn’t have anything on him at that time,” Winston said.

FBI Director Kash Patel described the attack as “an act of domestic terrorism motivated by a hate-filled ideology.”

Police are reviewing online videos, which have been removed from YouTube, in which the shooter scrawled racial slurs, a homophobic slur, antisemitic messages, a call for President Donald Trump’s death, and references to the Holocaust and the Catholic Church.

Additionally, the video showed the suspect flipping through a journal written in English but using the Cyrillic alphabet. Occasionally uttering “koshmar,” the Russian word for “nightmare,” the shooter discusses the mechanics of mass school shootings and suicide.

No “red flag” alarms were sounded over Minneapolis shooting suspect Robin Westman prior to Wednesday’s deadly incident, police have said.

A Minnesota state “red flag” law allows family members and others to ask authorities to have guns removed from a person they believe could be a danger to themselves or their community.

Westman was able to buy a rifle, shotgun and a pistol that were all used in Wednesday’s attack.

Authorities have said the guns were purchased lawfully, and there is no indication so far in their investigations that any alerts over Westman’s behavior were raised.

“There is nothing in the investigation so far that would lead us to believe that anything was missed,” Minneapolis police Chief Brian O’Hara said.

The shooter, he said, was able to “lawfully purchase these weapons.”

Cops visited the home of Robin Westman on at least two occasions when the suspect was a teenager, according to a report.

Heavily redacted records obtained from the police department in Eagan, Minnesota, by NBC News, show officers went to the residence on 26 January 2018 for a ‘welfare check of a juvenile”.

The name of the individual involved is blacked out.

Two years prior to that call, police records show officers attended the same address following a report of a “criminal offense” there.

All further details of the incident, except for the fact that the case was closed, have been redacted.

Westman died by suicide at the scene of the mass shooting.

The day after a mass shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic School that left two children dead and 18 people injured, including 15 other youngsters and three elderly parishioners, local residents continue trying to come to grips with the horrific event.

“I would say I was thunderstruck,” said Jim White, who lives across the street from 23-year-old shooter Robin Westman.

White, 57, told The Independent that he often crossed paths with the suspect’s dad and stepmom, and that the news of the horrific act caught him entirely by surprise.

The mother of Sophia Forchas, one of the 15 children injured in Wednesday’s deadly shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school, is a nurse in the pediatric intensive care unit who was working at the hospital the morning when her daughter and others began arriving for emergency treatment.

Josh Marcus and Mike Bedigan report.

Police say locked church doors likely saved “countless lives” during the Minneapolis school shooting in which two children were killed and 17 others injured at Annunciation Catholic School.

The shooter, Robin Westman, 23, fired through church windows after failing to enter the building, leaving behind writings showing a “deranged fascination”, according to police chief Brian O’Hara.

The shooter had not been able to get inside due to the locked doors, Mr O’Hara said.

He said the shooter’s writings revealed hatred for “almost every group imaginable.”

Acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Joe Thompson, added that the attacker was “obsessed” with killing children.

“I won’t dignify the shooter’s words by repeating them,” he said. “They are horrific and vile, but in short, the shooter wanted to watch children suffer.”