On Wednesday morning, August 27, 23-year-old Robert Westman opened fire with a shotgun, a pistol, and a rifle at the children and staff of Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis through the windows of the church during the morning mass service. A 10-year-old girl, Harper, and an 8-year-old boy, Fletcher, were killed; another student, Sophia, is still fighting for her life in the hospital. Eighteen others were injured. Westman, who identified as transgender, then shot himself in the parking lot.
Westman’s weapons were painted with hateful slogans of all sorts, including: “6 million wasn’t enough” and “Jew Gas,” references to the Holocaust; “Kill Donald Trump”; “Israel must fall” and “Burn Israel”; “Where is your God?”; “For the Children”; “Psycho Killer,” and “Why So Queerious?” The magazines of his guns were also decorated with an array of Satanic symbols and the names of previous mass shooters. Westman’s hatreds, it seems, were wide, vast, and explicitly demonic.
Westman’s killing spree was not the first attack by a transgender shooter on a Christian school. In March 2023, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, who identified as transgender, killed three children and three staff members at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. Hale was killed by police. In 2019, Alec McKinney, a female identifying as male, opened fire at the STEM School Highlands Ranch in Denver, Colorado, killing one teenager and injuring eight. She cited student refusal to accept her “gender identity” as motive.
As journalist Andy Ngo noted, the radicalization and mobilization of transgender activists has been ongoing for several years; the June 2025 edition of the leftist magazine Eugene Weeklyfeatured a cover photo of a trans activist holding an assault rifle with the headline: “As the Trump Administration attacks trans people, some queer folks are armed and ready to bash back.” One trans activist stated that although he feels bad for the children, “I don’t feel bad for their parents. This happened at a Catholic school…y’all can shove your thoughts and prayers right where the sun don’t shine.” This sort of hatred is clearly demonic.
Westman legally changed his name at a district court in Minnesota in 2020, with the application noting that the minor child “identifies as female and wants her name to reflect that identification.” Because he was a minor, both parents had to sign off on the change. As is so often the case with mass shooters, Westman’s parents were divorced. Mary Grace Westman—who is 67—was almost immediately attacked for allegedly affirming her son’s gender dysphoria; later reports indicate it may have been the killer’s father.
In Westman’s “manifesto” and online content, which are as vile and varied as the slogans on his weapons, he admits that his mother never supported his transition. “I remember one day, she said something like, ‘In the future you will look back and feel ridiculous about who you feel like you are inside. You will regret this,’” he wrote. He admits that “Gender and weed f****d up my head. I wish I never tried experimenting with either.” In one post, he wrote:
I am sick of my hair, I want to chop it off! I only keep it because it is pretty much my last charade of being trans. I am tired of being trans, I wish I never brain washed myself. I can’t cut my hair off now as it would be an embarrassing defeat, and it might be a concerning change of character that could get me reported.
In one of his videos, Westman showed a picture of Jesus fastened to a shooting target; in the most chilling sketch in his manifesto, he is staring into a mirror, a gun slung across his back, with Satan looking back at him from the reflection. The media is determined to avoid the obvious spiritual battle at play here; to do so, however, is to ignore Westman’s own public posts and his manifesto. Whatever his hatreds—Christians, Jews, Donald Trump—his self-confessed demonic solution was to kill children in church.
It was inevitable that the killing of Catholic children by a trans-identifying shooter would cause problems for the mainstream press and progressive politicians. FBI Director Kash Patel, who announced that the shooting would be investigated as a hate crime against Christians, referred to Westman correctly as male. NBC, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal all referred to Westman as female, as did CNN’s Jake Tapper. Other media outlets attempted to downplay Westman’s transgender identity by stating that it was “not clear” how he identified.
Progressives immediately condemned calls for prayers and warned against discussing Westman’s transgender identity. Jen Psaki did so on MSNBC. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey did so at a press conference after the shooting with Governor Tim Walz present. Walz, as it turns out, had ignored requests for more school security; the Minnesota Catholic Conference sent him a letter two years ago warning that: “Our schools are under attack.” Walz did, however, sign legislation making Minnesota a “trans refuge.” Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan also posed in a shirt that featured the slogan “Protect Trans Kids” and an enormous knife.
Vice President JD Vance’s response summed it up best. “It is shocking to me that so many left wing politicians attack the idea of prayer in response to a tragedy,” he wrote. “Literally no one thinks prayer is a substitute for action. We pray because our hearts are broken and we believe that God is listening.” Progressives, it seems, do not. As Christians across America mourned and the devastated parents of the Annunciation Catholic School buried their dead children, many progressives scorned their prayers, echoing the sentiments of the shooter: “Where is your God?”
