Authorities in Minneapolis revealed more details about the motive of Annunciation Catholic Church shooter Robin Westman, with the city’s police chief saying that “ultimately the purpose of the shooter’s actions was to obtain notoriety for the shooter themselves.” 

Brian O’Hara made the remark after telling reporters that “no evidence ever be able to make sense” of the mass shooting that left two children dead and 18 others injured Wednesday. However, he said, the Minneapolis Police Department “will do our best to determine and identify a specific motive.” 

“What we have seen so far is this is an individual who, unfortunately, like so many other mass shooters that we have seen in this country too often and around the world, had some deranged fascination with previous mass shootings and very disturbing writings that demonstrate hatred towards many different individuals and different groups of people,” O’Hara said. “And he fantasized about the plans of other mass shooters.” 

Acting United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota Joe Thompson said Thursday that Westman left behind “hundreds of pages of writings, writings that describe the shooter’s plan, writings that describe the shooter’s mental state, and, more than anything, writings that describe the shooter’s hate. 

O’Hara also mentioned how Westman had previously attended Mass at the Annunciation Catholic Church and that his mother “was an employee of the parish previously for some time.” 

However, he added, “we have not identified a triggering event or a specific grievance against the church that you could point to, to say ‘this is the reason for why this happened.’” 

Police and medical teams work the scene of the mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church. (Reuters/Ben Brewer)

Wednesday’s mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church draws parallels to the Covenant School massacre – a targeted March 2023 attack on a Christian school in Nashville, Tenn., by a transgender shooter who killed three third-graders and three adults. 

“The stark reality is that mass shooters read about and study their predecessors before committing their own carnage,” Don Aaron, a spokesman for the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department, told Fox News Digital. 

“We know the shooter in the Covenant case did, as she planned her attack over a period of many months. She went through firearms training during that period without setting off alarms. She had no adverse contact with law enforcement prior to the day of the shooting,” he said. 

Erick Vandergon writes a note at a memorial at Annunciation Catholic Church after Wednesday’s school shooting, on Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP/Abbie Parr)

“After a lengthy investigation, the shooter’s quest for notoriety was deemed to be the motive,” Aaron added. “She wanted her bedroom to be preserved and movies and books to be made about her. That is why it is so important to make the victims the focus of public statements in the days, weeks, and years after these horrible crimes. Most people, especially law enforcement, do not  want to publicly focus on the shooter’s twisted planning so that it does not influence others.” 

Fox News Digital’s Michael Ruiz, Sarah Rumpf-Whitten and Jon Street contributed to this report.