‘Absolutely incomprehensible’: Two dead, 17 injured in Minneapolis school shooting
A shooter opened fire with a rifle through the windows of a Catholic church and struck a group of children celebrating mass during the first week of school, killing two and injuring 17 in an act of violence that the police chief called “absolutely incomprehensible”.
Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara said that the shooter – armed with a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol – approached the church side and turned through the windows to the children sitting in the benches during mass at the Catholic School of Annunciation.
O’Hara said that the suspect of the shooting was dead and at the start of the twenty and had no wide known criminal history. The officials examine his reason.
“It was an act of deliberate violence against innocent children and other adores. The cruelty and cowardice to fire in a church full of children are absolutely incomprehensible,” said the police chief, who noted that a wooden board had been placed to barricade some of the side doors.
The children who died were 8 and 10 years old, he said.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has described “horrible” violence in an article on social networks.
Children’s Minnesota, a pediatric trauma hospital, said five children had been admitted for care. Hennepin Healthcare, who has the largest Emergency Service in Minnesota, said he was also taking care of the shooting patients.
Bill Bienemann, who lives a few pâtés of houses and has long attended mass at the Annunciation church, said he had heard dozens of shots, perhaps up to 50 minutes.
“I was shocked. I said,” There is no way to gunshots “,” he said. “There were so much. It was sporadic.”
Mr. Bienemann’s daughter Alexandra said that she frequented kindergarten school in the 8th year, finishing in 2014. After hearing about the shooting, she said she was shaking and crying, and her boss told her to take a day off.
“It breaks my heart, makes me sick in my stomach, knowing that there are people I know who are injured or perhaps even killed,” said Alexandra Bienemann. “It doesn’t make me feel safe at all in this community in which I have been for so long.”
The school was evacuated and the families of students were later sent to a “reunification zone” at the school. Outside, in the middle of a strong presence in uniform in uniform, were uniform children in their dark green shirts or dresses. Many have gotten out of school with adults, causing persistent hugs and wiping tears.
The agents of local, states, counties and federal police have converged in the region, a green and commercial district approximately 5 miles (8 kilometers) south of the city center of Minneapolis. On Truth Social, President Donald Trump said he was informed of the “tragic shot” and that the White House would continue to monitor him.
Dating from 1923, kindergarten in the eighth primary school had a mass to all schools scheduled at 8:15 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to its website. Monday was the first day of school. The recent publications on school’s social networks show that children smiling at a school return to school, supporting summer artistic projects, playing together and enjoying ice cream.
During a meeting of Democratic leaders elsewhere in Minneapolis, the president of the National Democratic Committee, Ken Martin, noted the shooting and the “unknown quantity of victims”.
The shots were the last of a series of deadly shots in the city in less than 24 hours. One person was killed and six others were injured during a shootout Tuesday afternoon outside a high school in Minneapolis. A few hours later, two people died in two other city shots.
The Wednesday school shooting also followed a series of hoax calls on the so -called shootouts on at least a dozen American university campuses. The false warnings, sometimes presenting sounds of shot in the background, prompted universities to emit texts to “run, hide, fight” and frightened the students of the country at the start of the school year.
This story was reported by the Associated Press.
The writers of the Hannah Fingerhut associated press to monks, Iowa; Jennifer Peltz in New York; Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota; and Sarah Brumfield in Cockeysville, Maryland; contributed to this report.
