MINNEAPOLIS— As the families of the two Catholic school students fatally shot while celebrating Mass at a Minneapolis church continue to wrestle with their grief, the father of the 8-year-old boy killed tearfully urged the community to remember his son for his love of family, fishing and cooking.
“Please remember Fletcher for the person he was and not the act that ended his life,” Jesse Merkel said Thursday.
Fletcher and 10-year-old Harper Moyski were killed and more than a dozen of their schoolmates were wounded Wednesday when a shooter, identified as 23-year-old Robin Westman, fired 116 rifle rounds through the church’s stained-glass windows.
Surveillance video captured the attack during the first week of classes at the Annunciation Catholic School and showed the shooter never entered the church and could not see the children while firing, said Minneapolis police Chief Brian O’Hara.
Harper’s parents said they want to see their daughter’s memory bring about changes when it comes to gun violence and mental health issues.
“Change is possible, and it is necessary — so that Harper’s story does not become yet another in a long line of tragedies,” Michael Moyski and Jackie Flavin said in a statement.
Fifteen children between the ages of 6 and 15 were injured, along with three parishioners in their 80s, according to city officials. One child remained in critical condition.
O’Hara said Westman was armed with a rifle, shotgun and pistol, and died by suicide.
This shooting renewed calls for gun safety legislation. But getting that done in Minnesota may be difficult in a state closely split along partisan lines.
Authorities try to determine a motive
Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said videos and writings the shooter left behind show Westman “expressed hate towards almost every group imaginable.”
Investigators recovered evidence from the church and three residences, the police chief said. They found more writings from the shooter, but no additional firearms or a clear motive for the attack on the church Westman once attended. Westman had a “deranged fascination” with mass killings, O’Hara said.
FBI Director Kash Patel said on X that the attack was an act of domestic terrorism motivated by hate-filled ideology, citing the shooter’s statements against multiple religions and calls for violence against President Donald Trump.
Westman, who once attended the school and whose mother worked for the parish before retiring in 2021, left behind several videos and page upon page of writings describing a litany of grievances. One read: “I know this is wrong, but I can’t seem to stop myself.”
What appears to be a suicide note to family contains a confession of long-held plans to carry out a shooting and talk of being deeply depressed.
Videos of weapons and ammunition
On a YouTube channel, videos that police say may have been posted by the shooter show weapons and ammunition scrawled with “kill Donald Trump” and “Where is your God?” along with the names of past mass shooters.
The now-deleted videos also show the person filming the video pointing to two windows in what appears to be a drawing of the church. The person then stabs it with a long knife.
