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Police work the scene following a mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church on August 27, 2025, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
On August 27, 2025, a shooter opened fire at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, killing two children and injuring at least 17 more before killing themselves.
Preliminary research by the ADL Center on Extremism (COE) suggests the shooter, identified by law enforcement as R. Westman, held a deep fascination with mass killers and researched them extensively. Unlike many recent mass attackers, it does not appear that the Annunciation shooter left behind a manifesto outlining a clear motive or ideological alignment. Rather, shortly before the attack, the shooter uploaded two YouTube videos, which have since been removed, displaying what appears to have been a handwritten suicide note addressed to their family that detailed struggles with mental health and suicidal ideations. These videos also showcased the writings and markings on the weapons and gear they ultimately used in the attack.
The Annunciation attacker scrawled numerous references and symbols on their weapons linked to a broad range of mass attackers, mimicking the 2019 Christchurch, 2022 Buffalo, and 2025 Antioch shooters, among others, who marked their weapons before launching their attacks. However, the references found on the attacker’s weapons do not suggest a deep knowledge of white supremacy. Instead, the references point to a broader fixation on mass violence.
The names, symbols and phrases used by the Annunciation shooter suggest that they may have participated in online spaces dedicated to the aesthetics and actions of previous mass killers and perpetrators of violence. In contrast to some previous killers who adorned their guns with symbols to indicate white supremacist beliefs, the Annunciation shooter appears to have focused on the names of and references to various perpetrators or would-be perpetrators of mass killings. The shooter also included many phrases to express their violent intentions or possibly simply for shock value, such as “psycho killer,” “suck on this,” “there is no message,” “release the list” (likely a reference to the Epstein list), and “skibidi” (a reference to the popular Skibidi toilet meme).
The Annunciation attacker also referenced several mass killers typically revered by the True Crime Community (TCC), such as the 2012 Sandy Hook, 2007 Jokela and 2018 Kerch Polytechnic College shooting perpetrators. For example, the shooter wrote “Where is your God” and “Where is your God now?” on a magazine and the stock of an AR-style rifle, an obscure reference to a question that the Columbine shooters in 1999 are rumored to have asked one of their victims before killing her.
The Minneapolis shooter also repeatedly wrote "НЕНАВИСТЬ” (Russian for “hatred”) on their weapons, a probable reference to the t-shirt the 2018 Kerch Polytechnic College shooter wore during his attack. Similarly, the shooter frequently drew a symbol on their weapons associated with the perpetrator of the 2022 Highland Park parade shooting.
The shooter’s weapons also included references to recent attackers such as the 2024 Abundant Life shooter and the 2025 Palm Springs fertility clinic bomber. Phrases written on their weapons even expressed support for killing President Donald Trump.
The weapons also included an array of hateful references and messages targeting Christians, Jews, Black people, LGBTQ+ individuals, Muslims, Hispanics, and others, such as “kick a spic,” “Burn Israel,” and “6 million wasn’t enough,” an antisemitic phrase lamenting that only six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. In one video, the shooter also showed off a smoke bomb that had “Extra Thicc! [sic] Jew Gas” written on it in silver marker.
Notably, the attacker's suicide note expressed deep remorse for the impact on their family, suggesting their motive was a desire for notoriety and to violently end their life and others' lives, rather than ideological hatred.
The attacker’s journal, written in Cyrillic script and published in a YouTube video ahead of the attack, also underscores their desire for infamy. Describing the planned attack as their “masterpiece” and “art,” the shooter enthused that they couldn’t “stop thinking about... the shock on their faces.” The shooter suggested that their attack would “be the perfect way to say goodbye... By the time it happens, I won’t care about anything else anymore.”