Suspect in Minnesota church shooting identified
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Suspect in Minnesota church shooting identified
Just before 8:30 a.m. on August 27, 2025, children attending mass at the Church of the Annunciation in the Windom neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, became the victims of a mass shooting.
Bullets flew through the windows of the church, as a man clad head to toe in black, holding a rifle, shotgun, and handgun, open fired through the stained glass windows of the church.
He had barricaded worshippers inside, injuring 18 and killing three.
Children later described diving to the ground to take cover, just as they had been taught to in school. Bullets ripped through the air as they lay low, waiting for the fire to cease.
Calls to police began coming in at around 8:27 a.m.
Police arrived within minutes of the alerts, and paramedics began transporting injured children to a nearby paediatric trauma center.
Police later recovered around 116 rifle bullet casings from outside the church, as well as three shotgun shell casings and one unfired pistol cartridge, indicating the pistol had jammed. All firearms used in the shooting were reportedly legally purchased.
The guns were found to have messages written on them, such as disturbing anti-Semitic phrases like: “Six million wasn't enough,” as well as other taunting messages like “For the children hahahha,” on a magazine, and “Kill Donald trump” and "Rip & Tear," likely a reference to a song from the DOOM soundtrack that could also have ties with the Columbine shooting.
The suspect was later found dead by suicide in a nearby parking lot.
Among the victims were an eight-year-old and ten-year-old child. Although not officially identified by authorities, their parents named them as Harper Moyski, 8, and Fletcher Merkel, 10. An additional fifteen children aged six to fifteen years old, and three elderly people serving as parishioners were injured but expected to survive.
The Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) along with the FBI and ATF, announced that the shooting was being investigated as a hate-crime against Catholics and an act of domestic terrorism.
The suspect has been identified as 23-year-old Robin M. Westman, of Richfield, Minnesota.
Westman had published a 10 minute and 20 minute YouTube video that contained journals he had written partly in a form of rambling English-Russian Cyrillic with errors, as well as a letter to his parents and videos and images of firearms and ammunition.
The videos were quickly removed.
In 2020, Westman began identifying as female and legally changed his name from Robert to Robin.
He was employed by Rise Medical Cannabis Dispensary up until August 16, 2025, and was often reprimanded for being late or neglecting to come in to work at all.
His writings and journals leading up to the shooting indicate that he was unhappy with his decision, and that he was depressed and suicidal. He wrote at length about struggling with his identity, and felt he was not properly supported by his mother.
Media outlets report the shooter blamed his mother. He wrote:
“Your words, mother, made me stay in my discomfort unable to ask for help to avoid admitting defeat. You were right mama, but the way you handled it led me to wanting to kill so so many people.”
He wrote that he wished he had "never been brainwashed," and lamented about being born male, saying he could not “achieve” the body he wanted with the resources available to him.
He mused about liking furries for their ability to create a new physical form for themselves using costumes.
Pictures of him with long, red, wavy hair have been published aside articles about the shooting.
In his journals he referred to his hair, writing:
“I only keep the long hair because it is pretty much my last shred of being trans. I am tired of being trans. I can’t cut my hair now as it would be an embarrassing defeat, and it might be a concerning change of character that could get me reported. It just always gets in my way. I will probably chop it on the day of the attack."
Westman had recently been through a breakup and was living with a friend, who was reportedly older, in an apartment in Richfield.
Although the suspect had no criminal record, there was a welfare check on file at the Westman's home in 2018 over mental health concerns. An old teacher of the suspect had also noticed signs of mental health struggles and possibly self-harm.
The Independent reported that a former classmate of the shooter, Josefina Sanchez, said the suspect would "salute to Hitler when the teachers weren’t watching, when nobody was really watching."
Also found in the suspect’s rambling journals was references to mass shooters, like right-wing extremist, Robert Bowers, who attacked a synagogue in 2018, Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in 2012, neo-Nazi mass murderer Anders Breivik, and others.
The suspect also made mention of wanting to harm children, writing that he wanted to be a “scary horrible monster standing over those powerless kids.”
Search warrants have been executed for three properties in the Twin Cities.
Media outlets report that the shooter's mother, Mary Westman, who is now retired, worked at the Annunciation church as a secretary for five years, up until 2021.
The family were reportedly strict Catholics and Westman himself attended Annunciation school and church, and the shooter and his family had history with the site of the shooting.
Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, said of the mass shooting: “I have heard about a whole lot of hate that’s being directed at our trans community. 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. We should not be operating out of a place of hate for anyone."
The Detroit Catholic wrote that Fletcher Merkel loved his family and friends, and enjoyed playing sports.
He loved to fish and cook. They described Harper Moyski and joy, bright, and loved by all.
Fletcher’s father, Jesse Merkle said in a statement to the public: "We ask not for your sympathy, but your empathy as our family and our Annunciation community grieve and try to make sense of such a senseless act of violence.
He urged the public to: “Remember Fletcher for the person he was, and not the act that ended his life."
Harper Moyski's parents said of their child:
"We believe it is important that her memory fuels action. No family should ever have to endure this kind of pain. We urge our leaders and communities to take meaningful steps to address gun violence and the mental health crisis in this country."