The shooter who opened fire on a Catholic school Mass in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning has a connection to a former Republican lawmaker.
The gunman, identified as 23-year-old Robin Westman, a biological male formerly known as Robert Westman, killed two children and injured 17 more after firing through a church window as morning services began at Assumption Church, the Daily Mail reported.
Survivors described chilling scenes of children hiding beneath the bodies of classmates and pretending to be dead as the shooter entered the sanctuary.
Authorities said Westman’s mother worked at the Catholic K-8 school affiliated with the church. But new attention has focused on a family tie to Bob Heleringer, a former Republican lawmaker from Kentucky.
Heleringer told the Associated Press that when he learned of his nephew’s actions, he wished “he had shot me instead of innocent schoolchildren.”
No official motive has been released. But law enforcement said an online video appeared to show Westman displaying firearms marked with anti-Trump and anti-religious messages.
FBI Director Kash Patel said the administration will investigate the massacre as “an act of domestic terrorism and hate crime targeting Catholics.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said Westman was dressed in black and carried a pistol, shotgun, and rifle. He described the gunman as methodically stalking the pews in search of children as young as six.
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“This was a deliberate act of violence,” O’Hara said.
Heleringer told the AP the shooting was “an unspeakable tragedy.”
“I am praying for my sister and her other children, and also, obviously, for these poor, poor children,” he said.
The former lawmaker told the Daily Mail that he had not seen Westman in years and last encountered him at a family wedding three or four years ago.
While in office, Heleringer supported measures to ban minors in Kentucky from receiving gender reassignment surgeries and chemical treatments. His ads asked if Republicans had worked so hard to win victories “just to wage an all-out war against defenseless transgender children?”
Republicans responding to the shooting pointed to mental health crises that have been linked to past transgender shooters, including the 2024 Nashville church attack.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., criticized Minnesota’s law banning firearms from school grounds.
“Deranged shooters choose schools because they know their victims are vulnerable. This one even admitted it,” Massie wrote on social media.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at a press conference that just hours before the attack, Westman posted several videos to YouTube, the New York Post reported.
In a 20-minute video, Westman displayed a handwritten manifesto, much of it written in a crude code combining Cyrillic characters with English phonetics.
In the writings, he also fantasizes about “being that scary horrible monster standing over those powerless kids” while confessing admiration for the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre.
“I really like my outfit. I look pretty, smart and modest. I think I want to wear something like this for my shooting,” the sicko added.
He described in detail his decision to target Annunciation, where he graduated from grade school in 2017, according to a yearbook obtained by CNN. His mother, Mary Grace Westman, worked as a secretary at the school until her retirement in 2021, according to a Facebook post from the church.
“I am feeling good about Annunciation. It seems like a good combo of easy attack form and devastating tragedy and I want to do more research. I have concerns about finding a large enough group. I want to avoid any parents, but pre and post school drop off,” says another page in the manifesto, The Post added.
“Maybe I could attack an event at the on-site church,” he ominously added. “I think attacking a large group of kids coming in from recess is my best plan … Then from there I can go inside and kill, going for as long as I can.”
