Two children killed, 17 injured in shooting at school mass in Minneapolis
Two children were killed and more than a dozen were injured in a shooting at a Catholic school in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning.
The shooting occurred around 8:30 a.m. at Annunciation Church on the city’s southwest side. Police said a gunman in his early 20s shot through the church windows while children from the adjacent Annunciation Catholic School were attending Mass to mark their first week of school.
An 8-year-old and a 10-year-old from the private pre-K-8 school were killed, police said, and the gunman died after shooting himself. Fifteen children and two adults were injured, and several remain in critical condition.
President Donald Trump spoke to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), who called the shooting a “horrific act of violence.” Local, state and federal law enforcement agencies have responded and are investigating.
Howard Dotson, a 54-year-old chaplain in Minneapolis, rushed to the site of the shooting to help after seeing an “armada” of police cars head over.
He waited with a parent at the perimeter law enforcement had set up around the school, then went to a hall where families were being reunited with their children, he said. Kids appeared to be in shock. Mothers were crying.
He passed out crayons and markers for the children to draw, he said, because that helps with trauma.
A teacher told him that students sang “Lord Prepare Me to be a Sanctuary” as they made their way from the chapel to the reunification hall.
Hennepin County Medical Center was mobilizing its resources, its chair of emergency medicine Dr. Thomas E. Wyatt said at a news conference.
The facility, a level 1 trauma center, was treating two adults and nine children between the ages of 6 and 14 from the Annunciation School shooting, Wyatt said. Four patients needed the operating room, and seven - all children - are in critical condition.
Trump has signed a proclamation honoring the victims of the school shooting in Minneapolis, ordering American flags to be flown at half-staff on public grounds through Sunday night. He called it “a mark of respect for the victims of the senseless acts of violence” Wednesday.
Brooks Turner, 35, held his preschooler daughter Ayla in his arms as he walked away from the scene. Turner said he was told students were in church for an all-school Mass when the shooting started - but Ayla and the other pre-K students were in a room below. Ayla said she heard banging and hid in a play kitchen before she was evacuated.