MINNEAPOLIS, United States (AFP) — Investigators were seeking to find out why a heavily armed shooter opened fire on children at a church service in Minneapolis on Wednesday, killing two pupils and wounding 17 people in the latest violent tragedy to jolt the United States.

City Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the attacker sprayed bullets through the windows of the Annunciation Church as dozens of young students were at a Mass marking their first week back at school.

The church sits next to an affiliated Catholic school in Minneapolis — the largest city in the Midwestern state of Minnesot — where hundreds attended vigils for the victims on Wednesday evening.

The FBI is investigating the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime targeting Catholics, according to Director Kash Patel.

Authorities identified the attacker as Robin Westman, a 23-year-old transgender woman who, according to US media, had attended the school.

“Two young children, ages eight and 10, were killed where they sat in the pews,” O’Hara said. Fourteen wounded children were expected to survive, while three elderly parishioners were also shot, he added.

The shooter fired a rifle, shotgun, and pistol before dying by suicide in the parking lot. The attacker had recently purchased the weapons legally, police said.

One 10-year-old said he had survived the shooting thanks to a friend who covered him with his body.

“I just ran under the pew, and then I covered my head,” he told broadcaster
CBS. “My friend Victor saved me though, because he laid on top of me, but he got hit.”

A joint statement from the school’s principal and pastor said that within seconds of the start of shooting, “our heroic staff moved students under the pews”.

The mass shooting is the latest in a long line of deadly school attacks in the US where attempts to restrict easy access to firearms face political deadlock.

FBI Director Kash Patel identified the shooter as, “Robin Westman, a male born as Robert Westman.”

Westman, 23, legally had a name change in 2020 and identified as female, court papers show.

In a post on X, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the shooter was “claiming to be transgender”, and called the attack “unthinkable”.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey warned against using the attack to lash out at transgender people, and addressed the issue of gun ownership in the US.

“Anybody who is using this… as an opportunity to villainise our trans community, or any other community out there, has lost their sense of common humanity,” Frey told reporters.

“We’ve got more guns in this country than we have people… we can’t just say that this shouldn’t happen again and then allow it to happen again and again.”

More than 600 people attended a vigil mourning the victims at a nearby school on Wednesday evening, the
Minnesota Star Tribune reported.

One attendee, Louise Fowler, told the newspaper she knew the suspect’s mother when she worked at the church.

“The family worked hard with this child, who had a lot of problems,” she said of Westman.

Videos posted online by the shooter showed a multi-page manifesto, and names and drawings of firearms.

O’Hara, the police chief, said the manifesto appeared to show Westman, “at the scene, and included some disturbing writings and content [that] has since been taken down.”

“We don’t have a motive at this time,” O’Hara said.

The attack drew condemnation and expressions of grief from many, including President Donald Trump, who directed US flags at the White House be lowered to half-staff.

Pope Leo XIV —- the first American to head the Catholic Church — said he was “profoundly saddened” by the tragedy.

Minneapolis Archbishop Bernard Hebda pointed out that the attack came just a day after another school shooting near the city, adding in a statement: “We need an end to gun violence.”

Former President Barack Obama called it “yet another act of unspeakable, unnecessary violence.”

This year, there have been at least 287 mass shootings — defined as a shooting involving at least four victims, dead or wounded — across the country, according to the Gun Violence Archive.