Minneapolis – The strongly armed assailant who opened fire during the Mass in a Catholic school in Minneapolis was found dead in the back of the church with an apparent gunshot wound in the head, according to preliminary information in recently released search orders.
Robin Westman, 23, was found dressed in “tactical” black team with at least two nearby firearms in Wednesday morning’s uproar in the Annunciation Catholic Church, police said. Two children were killed and another 18 faithful were injured.
A search warrant for the church said three weapons were taken as evidence: a semi -automatic taurus gun, a Mossberg pump action shotgun and a semi -automatic magpul rifle. The police found a wooden table with a gas container and a metal pin on the ground, according to the search warrant, the items that may have been used to be used as a smoke pump.
The researchers also said they collected a knife, green gloves without fingers, black mechanical gloves, headphones and a growing gray sweatshirt.
A commercial truck, a city of Ram Procomaster 2015, had been parked behind the church with at least one of its open rear doors and a visible rifle case for the officers, according to the search warrant. The vehicle was registered in Westman’s father, James Westman.
In a conversation with the police after the shooting, James Westman said Robin Westman was his son and driving the truck. He also said that Robin Westman had recently been living in the nearby suburb of Richfield, but had broken with a “significant and/or romantic couple” and was staying with another friend in neighbor St. Louis Park, according to the search warrant.
James Westman also advised the police that his son previously attended the Annunciation Church and his school, and that his ex -wife, his son’s mother, had worked there.
In the father’s house, the police recovered a tactical vest, two storage devices of external media and various documents, according to the search warrant.
In total, the police listed 100 tests, including t -shirts, bullets and cartridges, to be tested by the Minnesota criminal apprehension office. A property report of the Minneapolis Police Department also lists 158 tests, including weapons, articles that seem to belong to the shooter and a USB and iPhone taken from the vehicle.
Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara told reporters that Robin Westman’s family has been cooperating with the investigators, although they had not talked to their mother, Mary Grace Westman. The records show that he has a residence in Florida and that he has hired a criminal defense lawyer, Ryan Garry. He declined to comment on Thursday.
Police have not said if Mary Grace Westman or a family member potentially face charges. O’Hara said that the weapons used in the shooting were legally bought recently and that there were no prior indications that Robin Westman, who was a transgender woman, suffered a mental illness. Westman had no police record, in addition to a traffic fine.
The researchers continue to look for a clear reason for the attack and what led Westman to shoot a rifle through the side windows of the Church of the Annunciation Catholic School, pointing to children sitting in the banks, just before 8:30 am
Fletcher Merkel, 8, and Harper Moyski, 10, were killed. Another fifteen children, from 6 to 15 years old, were injured, as well as three adult parishioners in their 80s.
Westman left videos in line with disturbing content and writings that referred to suicide.
The special FBI agent in Minneapolis, Alvin Winston Mr., said the agency had not had any previous contact with the shooter.
The director of the FBI, Kash Patel, described the attack “an act of domestic terrorism motivated by an ideology full of hate.”
The police continue to review the online videos published by Westman, in which the shooter wrote racial insults, a homophobic insult, antisemy messages, a call to the death of President Donald Trump and references to the Holocaust and the Catholic Church.
In addition to the church and the house of James Westman, two other nearby residences associated with the shooter were registered as part of the investigation.
“Additional firearms are being recovered from those residences while we talk,” O’Hara told reporters on Wednesday.
Brianna Seidl, a neighbor of the house in St. Louis Park, where Westman had been living, said Friday that he would see Westman occasionally rolling or skating in the neighborhood. Police polished the house on Wednesday just before 11 in the morning, said Seidl, and asked a speaker to leave a resident.
The police put a caution tape around the scene and took boxes, he added.
The resident “fulfilled them.
Selina Guevara reported from Minneapolis, Erik Ortiz from New York and Cat Corrigan from Chicago.
