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Robin Westman, the perpetrator of Wednesday’s deadly shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, owned weaponry that carried numerous violent messages, including antisemitic slogans celebrating the Holocaust and threatening Israel.
Two children were killed and 18 other students and staff were wounded in the attack.
The 23-year-old Westman, a self-identified trans woman who changed her name from Robert in 2020, also posted disturbing material online.
A YouTube account connected to Westman displayed a cache of firearms with hate-filled inscriptions. They included “6 million wasn’t enough,” “Extra Thicc! [sic] Jew Gas,” “Burn Israel,” and “Israel must fall.”
Robin Westman, the suspected shooter in today’s mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, appears to have had a YouTube Channel named “Robin W” which has since been deleted, that contained several video consisting of guns, a manifesto… pic.twitter.com/B3JJUOIGJp
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) August 27, 2025
Online Manifesto Reveals Premeditation
The deleted channel further featured videos of Westman flipping through a handwritten manifesto. In these entries, Westman used Cyrillic script as a code, laying out a detailed plan for the massacre. The writings contained maps of the school, notes on timing to avoid parents, and chilling statements such as “I can’t wait to kill” and “I want to kill kids for fun.”
In one entry, Westman fantasized about being “that scary, horrible monster standing over those powerless kids.”
The manifesto also repeatedly praised mass shooters, including Adam Lanza, who murdered 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
Antisemitic and Terroristic Themes
Westman’s videos also showed firearms inscribed with the names of six other mass shooters. A bump stock bore their names, underscoring Westman’s desire to join their ranks. Westman described herself as “the harbinger of destruction” and wrote in Russian again and again: “I am sick, I fall, and I die.”
In addition, Westman admitted in a 20-minute video that she used $2,000 from her father to buy a gun. Police later confirmed that all weapons came through legal purchases.
Federal Authorities Treating Case as Terrorism
The FBI announced it is investigating the massacre as both an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime targeting Catholics. Local investigators werealso reviewing Westman’s connection to the deleted YouTube account.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Westman’s mother had worked as an administrative assistant at Annunciation Church, the site of the attack.
Ultimately, the massacre highlights the lethal convergence of online radicalization, virulent antisemitism, and the glorification of mass shootings — an extremist threat that demands urgent attention from both law enforcement authority and wider society as a whole.
We extend our deepest condolences to families of the victims of the horrific shooting of Catholic school children in Minneapolis and pray for the recovery of the wounded.
Hate and extremism have no place in modern-day society and must be rooted out.https://t.co/yPOWPRYTrA
— Combat Antisemitism Movement (@CombatASemitism) August 27, 2025
