by Jonathon Van Maren, The Bridgehead
On Wednesday morning, August 27, 23-year-old Robert Westman opened fire with a shotgun, a pistol, and a rifle at the children and staff of Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis through the windows of the church during the morning mass service. A 10-year-old girl, Harper, and an 8-year-old boy, Fletcher, were killed; another student, Sophia, is still fighting for her life in the hospital. Eighteen others were injured. Westman, who identified as transgender, then shot himself in the parking lot.
Westman’s weapons were painted with hateful slogans of all sorts, including: “6 million wasn’t enough” and “Jew Gas,” references to the Holocaust; “Kill Donald Trump”; “Israel must fall” and “Burn Israel”; “Where is your God?”; “For the Children”; “Psycho Killer,” and “Why So Queerious?” The magazines of his guns were also decorated with an array of Satanic symbols and the names of previous mass shooters. Westman’s hatreds, it seems, were wide, vast, and explicitly demonic.
Westman’s killing spree was not the first attack by a transgender shooter on a Christian school. In March 2023, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, who identified as transgender, killed three children and three staff members at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. Hale was killed by police. In 2019, Alec McKinney, a female identifying as male, opened fire at the STEM School Highlands Ranch in Denver, Colorado, killing one teenager and injuring eight. She cited student refusal to accept her “gender identity” as motive.
As journalist Andy Ngo noted, the radicalization and mobilization of transgender activists has been ongoing for several years; the June 2025 edition of the leftist magazine Eugene Weekly featured a cover photo of a trans activist holding an assault rifle with the headline: “As the Trump Administration attacks trans people, some queer folks are armed and ready to bash back.” One trans activist stated that although he feels bad for the children, “I don’t feel bad for their parents. This happened at a Catholic school…y’all can shove your thoughts and prayers right where the sun don’t shine.” This sort of hatred is clearly demonic.