“I almost find the conclusion that it’s a hate crime against Catholics premature in that we are trying to attach rational motives to a completely irrational act.”
In the wake of Wednesday’s mass shooting at a Catholic Church and school in Minneapolis, which saw the murder of two young students, a CNN panel said that it was too early to assign a motive to the shooter. That shooter, trans-identified 23-year-old Robert "Robin" Westman, had a manifesto saying that he hated God before he undertook the massacre against Catholic children. The panel, however, said that it was "premature" to say Westman carried out a hate crime against Catholics.
CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller said, "going through the writings, particularly going through the videos, as he, the shooter, laid out his weapons and held up each individual parts. What you saw there was a pervasive message of hate. Hate against blacks, hate against Jews, hate against God, and the target, of course, being a Catholic church."
"But there's also a degree of posturing there about we're going to investigate it as," he went on. "They're investigating it in support of the Minneapolis Police, who have a homicide case. The offender is dead. It is doubtful that anyone other than the offender, unless we learn something very new in the next couple of days, is going to be charged. I almost find the conclusion that it's a hate crime against Catholics premature in that we are trying to attach rational motives to a completely irrational act."
Clinical psychologist Dr Jeff Gardere added, "Absolutely. Where is the political ideology here, right? This is someone who actually attended that school at some point. So we may assume, I'm not sure, that this person is Catholic also, but what we're looking at here is, is there any rationality to what this person does? This is what we see with terrorism, right? You want to terrorize a particular society with whatever your ideas are, to push that idea, this is a person who we've seen with other shooters will most likely be someone with extreme mental illness."
Authorities said that Westman died inside the church where students had been attending their first mass of the school year from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In writings, Westman, whose name was changed to Robin as a minor after identifying as female, expressed regret over his transgender identity.
One video showed writings covering weaponry and gear, including the names of other mass shooters, threats to kill President Donald Trump, Satanic symbols, and antisemitic messages. Westman had attended the K-8 school. His mother worked at the school but retired in 2021.
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