Minneapolis ,August 28(HS): In a horrifying prelude to Wednesday’s deadly church attack, 23-year-old Robin Westman uploaded a pair of disturbing YouTube videos hours before opening fire inside Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, leaving two children dead and 17 others wounded.
The now-removed videos, circulating widely on social media, reveal key insights into the gunman’s mindset. One clip opens with the iconic “Heisenberg” image from Breaking Bad, fades into a handwritten suicide note addressed to Westman’s family, and then lingers on a chilling display of rifles and magazines scrawled with violent messages — including “Kill Donald Trump”, “Nuke India”, and antisemitic and anti-religious slurs. Several magazines also bore the names of past mass shooters.
In a second, longer recording, Westman leafs through a coded Cyrillic-script journal referencing previous mass killings, grievances against multiple groups, and drawings — including one of a church, which investigators now identify as Annunciation. The shooter is seen stabbing the sketch repeatedly with a knife, foreshadowing the planned rampage. Another drawing depicted a gun-wielding figure confronting a demon, alongside the Russian words: “Who am I? When will this end? Help me. I don’t want it.”
Armed with a rifle, shotgun, and pistol, Westman stormed the church around 8:30 a.m., firing through windows into pews packed with children during the first week of school. Authorities say the attacker later died in the school parking lot from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Court records show Westman, born Robert Paul Westman, legally changed their name in 2020. Investigators link the attack not to gender identity but to long-documented struggles with severe depression, suicidal thoughts, and violent obsessions, reflected in a manifesto-style letter apologizing to family and urging them to move on.
Police are now analyzing Westman’s writings, coded manifesto, and online content for deeper motives, warning of the disturbing copycat references to earlier massacres that frame the shooting as part of a self-declared lineage of violence.
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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar
