ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. (AP) — The shooter who killed two schoolchildren and injured 21 other people at a Catholic church in Minneapolis was caught on video visiting a suburban gun shop the weekend before the attack, but the owner of the store said Thursday that his staff saw no warning signs in his conduct.
The video shows that Robin Westman spent around 40 minutes at Frontiersman Sports in St. Louis Park on Aug. 23. Westman examined several guns and ultimately bought a revolver, owner Kory Krause
told The Associated Press. Westman had already passed the required background checks and had a valid permit to purchase the gun, he said.
But the revolver wasn't one of the guns Westman used in the shootings at the Church of the Annunciation on Aug. 27, when it was full of students from the affiliated Annunciation Catholic School who had gathered for their first Mass of the academic year. Investigators recovered a semiautomatic assault-style rifle, a shotgun and a different handgun at the scene, and said Westman was legally entitled to buy them. Krause said none came from his store.
Westman, 23, attended the school for eighth grade and Westman's mother formerly worked for the parish, but investigators are still trying to determine a motive. Westman died by suicide after firing 116 rifle rounds through the church’s stained-glass windows.
As first reported by KSTP-TV, the security video shows Westman handling several firearms and talking with employees and other customers. Krause wasn't in the store at the time, but he said he promptly shared the video with investigators and is cooperating with them.
Krause stressed that nothing in Westman's conduct raised any concerns among his staffers, who he said are trained to watch for warning signs.
“This person said all the right things, they checked all the right boxes, asked all the questions, they were friendly, talkative, making jokes, laughing, knowledgeable about guns, handled a lot of guns that were not the type of guns you would think are of the interest of somebody looking to do a mass shooting,” Krause told AP.
Krause said his employees have extensive experience in picking out bad actors, straw purchasers, people who are homicidal, suicidal, mentally unstable or under the influence of alcohol or drugs. But he said nothing stood out with Westman.
“We're still going over it,” Krause said. “We’re still scratching our heads thinking, ‘What did we miss? What could we have done?’ But it always ends with the answer of ‘nothing.’ There was just nothing there. And that’s what makes this situation so unique.”
Democratic Gov. Tim Walz said Tuesday he intends to call a special session of the Minnesota Legislature to address gun and school safety, and he suggested that an assault weapons ban would be on his list of proposals, which he is still developing. But it would be very difficult for anything to pass the closely divided Legislature without at least some bipartisan support.
House Republicans on Thursday released a list of proposals that lack any restrictions on access to firearms. It calls for increased funding for school security and for school resources officers, including for private schools. They would also prohibit districts from banning school resource officers, as Minneapolis and some other districts have done. The House GOP also called for more mental health treatment beds, and mandatory minimum prison sentences for repeat criminals who use guns and for straw purchasers of firearms that are used in violent crimes.
Students Demand Action, an arm of Everytown for Gun Safety, is organizing school walkouts across the country for Friday to demand that state and federal lawmakers ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
___
Associated Press writer Steve Karnowski reported from Minneapolis.
