TRANS SHOOTER? Annunciation School Shooting Suspect Changed Name Due to Gender Identity, Court Records Suggest

The man who opened fire at a Minneapolis Catholic school Wednesday identified himself by two names, and those names match a court record for a name change in 2019.

Two children, ages 8 and 10, died in the shooting, and the shooter injured 17 others. Authorities found the gunman dead at the scene. The FBI is investigating the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime targeting Catholics, FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X.

“The shooter has been identified as Robin Westman, a male born as Robert Westman,” Patel wrote. “The FBI will continue to provide updates on our ongoing investigation with the public as we are able.”

Law enforcement sources confirmed the suspect’s identity as Robert Westman or Robin Westman in speaking with Fox News. The New York Post also reported that police identified Westman in a news conference and said Westman “has been identified as a transgender woman.”

The Daily Signal obtained two documents from Minnesota court records showing a Robert Westman requesting a legal name change to “Robin Westman” in 2019.

Mary Grace Westman filed a name change request for a minor, Robin M. Westman (born in June 2002), on Nov. 18, 2019. Westman put an address in Eagan, Minnesota, on the application.

A judge granted the request on Jan. 15, 2020. The document granting the name change notes that Robert Westman “identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification.”

Minneapolis Police did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s requests to confirm or deny that the suspect is the individual in the court records.

Speaking to the media Wednesday about the shooting, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said, “I have heard about a whole lot of hate that’s being directed at our trans community.”

“Anybody who is using this … as an opportunity to villainize our trans community, or any other community out there, has lost their sense of common humanity. We should not be operating out of a place of hate for anyone,” Frey, a Democrat, added.

Previous mass shooters who targeted Christian schools or churches have identified as transgender, most notably the shooter who targeted The Covenant School in Nashville in March 2023.

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