Two youngsters had been killed and 17 different folks had been injured on Wednesday after a gunman opened hearth on schoolchildren who had been attending Mass at a Minneapolis Catholic faculty, authorities stated.
The assailant, wielding a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol, fired dozens of rounds via the church home windows, officers stated. The shooter then took his personal life, they stated.
“This was a deliberate act of violence towards harmless youngsters and different folks worshiping. The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing right into a church full of kids is completely incomprehensible,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara advised reporters.
The capturing occurred two days after faculty began at Annunciation Catholic faculty, a non-public elementary faculty with about 395 college students. The college is related to Annunciation Catholic Church, and each are situated in a residential space within the southeast a part of Minnesota’s largest metropolis. Native TV confirmed mother and father ducking beneath yellow police crime tape and main college students out of the college.
Officers stated the shooter wore black clothes, was in his early 20s and didn’t have an intensive legal historical past. They didn’t present his identify and stated they had been making an attempt to determine a motive.
Youngsters’s Minnesota, a neighborhood hospital system, stated it was treating six youngsters.
There have been greater than 140 shootings at US elementary and secondary colleges this yr, in accordance with the Okay-12 College Capturing Database.
US President Donald Trump stated he had been briefed on the capturing and stated the FBI was on the scene. “Please be a part of me in praying for everybody concerned!” he stated on social media.
The US Division of Homeland Safety is in contact with native authorities and monitoring the state of affairs, Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem stated on social media.
There have been three different shootings within the midwestern metropolis since Tuesday afternoon, together with one at a Jesuit highschool, which have collectively left three folks useless and 7 wounded, in accordance with police.
Wednesday’s capturing didn’t seem like associated to the others, O’Hara stated.
Minneapolis has skilled a big rise in homicides within the years following the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, which prompted nationwide protests, civil disturbances and staffing shortages within the metropolis’s police division. Town recorded 54 homicides final yr, down from 71 in 2021 however nicely above the 29 recorded in 2019.
In June, Minnesota additionally skilled an incident of political violence, when a gunman posing as a police officer allegedly assassinated a Democratic state lawmaker and her husband of their house, and wounded one other lawmaker and his spouse. The suspect was arrested after a large two-day manhunt and faces state and federal homicide costs.
Minnesota state regulation requires background checks for all gun gross sales and the state as a complete has a gun demise fee under the nationwide common, in accordance with Everytown for Gun Security, a gun violence prevention group. — Reuters