An inscription above the doors of the Church of Annunciation in south Minneapolis proclaims its sanctuary to be “the House of God and the gate of Heaven.”
But on Wednesday, the sense of tranquility that parishioners and students have long found in the heart of the church and Catholic school was literally shattered when a shooter opened fire through its stained-glass windows.
Weston Halsne, 10, told reporters he was sitting two seats away from the windows that surround the sanctuary celebrating the start-of-school Mass, when shots began.
“It was like right beside me … I think I got gunpowder on my neck,” he said. “The first one, I was like, ‘What is that?’ and then I heard it again and I just ran under the pew.”
The fifth grader said he covered his head as his friend dove on top of him.
“(He) saved me though because he laid on top of me, but he got hit,” Weston said, adding the boy was hit in the back.
“He’s really brave, and I hope he’s good in the hospital.”
At least two children have been killed and 19 others – including 14 kids and 3 parishioners in their 80s – were injured during what police have described as a “deliberate act of violence.”
The shooter, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, had purchased the weapons “recently” and did not appear to have a criminal history, authorities have said.
‘Can you just please just hold my hand?’
Patrick Scallen still lives in the house he grew up in, about a block away from Annunciation. He attended the school as a child – just as his father did before him – and he told CNN he’s proud of the century-old church and school’s legacy in the community.
Just this morning, Scallen said he saw a family of kids who go to the school.
“I thought to myself in that moment, ‘What a wonderful thing Annunciation is,’” he said.
Scallen was working at his desk later in the morning, when he heard what sounded like gunshots. He took off running toward the school.
“It was eerily quiet when I got to the church,” he said. “There was a (gun) magazine on the sidewalk … and then people were starting to pour out.”
Immediately, Scallen said, he saw three children who were “obviously hurt.” A bullet had grazed one girl on the forehead, he said. Another girl had been shot in the neck.
“Can you just please hold my hand?” one of the girls asked, Scallen told CNN.
Although they were alert and talking, he said he tried to offer the kids any comfort and reassurances that he could until the EMTs arrived.
“I just kept telling them, ‘I’m going to call your Mom and Dad, I’m going to let them know. You’re going to be OK,” he said.
As they tried to process what they’d witnessed, Scallen said the kids began asking him questions: “Why did this happen? How could this happen?”
He, like so many of us, did not have answers.
An act of cruelty ‘beyond comprehension’
Church bells rang out mournfully in the distance as Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara described the “unthinkable tragedy” at a news conference later that morning.
The shooting began just before 8:30 a.m., O’Hara said, minutes into a worship service to mark the first week of school.
Suspect Robin Westman, 23, graduated from Annunciation Catholic’s grade school in 2017, according to a yearbook obtained by CNN.
“The gunman approached on the side of the building and began firing a rifle through the church windows towards the children sitting in the pews at the Mass,” O’Hara said.
The shooter was armed with a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol, O’Hara said, later adding that authorities believe all three weapons were fired.
Although the investigation is ongoing, O’Hara said most of the shooting appeared to have taken place from outside of the building and some of the doors to the church had been barricaded with two-by-fours from the outside.
“The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible,” O’Hara said. Children, ages 8 and 10, were “killed where they sat in the pews.”
“This deliberate act of violence is just a sign of cruelty that is beyond comprehension,” he said.
Frantic parents raced toward the reunification site and tearfully clung to their children as they escorted them off the school grounds. The shooting comes after a wave of active shooter hoaxes across the country brought panic to the start of the school year.
After arriving on the scene, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey ran toward the sanctuary and was later seen clasping his hands outside on the church steps.
“It was the first week of school – they were in a church,” Frey said Wednesday morning.
“These are kids that should be learning with their friends. They should be playing on the playground. They should be able to go to school or church in peace without the fear or risk of violence.”
Beyond ‘thoughts and prayers’
Annunciation began the school year this week with the theme “A future filled with hope.”
It is a reference to a Bible verse in which God says: “For I know full well the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for your misfortune, plans that will offer you a future filled with hope.”
“There’s nothing about today that can fill us with hope,” Annunciation principal Matthew DeBoer said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “We as a community have a responsibility to make sure that no child, no parent, no teacher ever has to experience what we’ve experienced today – ever again.
“There’s an African proverb that says, ‘When you pray, move your feet.’ So I beg you,” he said, his voice breaking, “I ask you to please pray, but don’t stop with your words.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz also encouraged the community – and the nation – to move beyond platitudes toward action to curb gun violence in America.
“It’s Minnesota’s day today,” he said. “I ask the rest of folks around the country who are watching, keep us in your thoughts and prayers, but also keep us in the thoughts for action, keep us in the ideas that we can work together.
In a video posted to the church’s Facebook page, Father Brian Park explains the symbolism of the stained-glass tableau that spills light into the sanctuary.
Part of the scene, he says, depicts the Biblical Adam hiding his face in shame at the “fall of humanity,” which Catholics believe ushered in a period of suffering and death.
But the Annunciation – the church’s namesake – celebrates the moment the Virgin Mary was told she would become the mother of Jesus. For Catholics, Park says, it symbolizes that “the Lord is with you.”
The Virgin Mary now gazes down from the stained-glass window at the senseless carnage wrought by man as Annunciation becomes yet another school torn apart by the all-too-common tragedy of gun violence in America.
“Don’t just say this is about ‘thoughts and prayers’ right now,” Frey, who was visibly emotional, said Wednesday morning .
“These kids were literally praying.”
CNN’s Dakin Andone, John Miller, Mark Morales and Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.
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