Minneapolis Catholic Church shooter blamed ‘gender and weed’ for mental health issues

CNA Staff, Sep 3, 2025 / 17:46 pm (CNA).

The shooter who killed two children and injured 21 others at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis blamed “gender and weed” for his mental health issues and discussed how his struggles with gender dysphoria contributed to his desire to commit the attack.

Robin Westman, the 23-year-old male shooter who self-identified as a transgender woman, made the admission in the manifesto he publicized on YouTube shortly before the shooting, according to a translation by the New York Post.

“Gender and weed [expletive] up my head,” Westman wrote in the manifesto, which was written in Cyrillic characters and phonetic English words. “I wish I never tried experimenting with either. Don’t let your kids smoke weed or change gender until they are like seventeen.”

Westman legally changed his first name from “Robert” to “Robin” when he was 17 years old to reflect his desire to present himself as a woman. He worked for a marijuana dispensary earlier this year, but was not working there when he carried out the Aug. 27 attack.

Although Westman’s mother gave parental consent for the name change, his writings claim she did not agree with the decision.

“When I was first out to my mother, she was VERY antagonistic,” he wrote. “She really made me hate myself and think I will never be good enough … I remember one day, she said something like, ‘In the future you will look back and feel ridiculous about who you feel like you are inside. You will regret this.’ Well guess what mom?! I regret being born.”

According to the Post’s translation, Westman claimed the way his mother handled his gender dysphoria “led me to wanting to kill so so many people.”

A previous translation of other sections of the manifesto by the Post revealed that Westman also expressed “regret” for “being trans” and wrote: “I wish I was a girl. I just know I cannot achieve that body with the technology we have today. I also can’t afford that.”

Even though he criticized how his mother handled his gender dysphoria, he also wrote that he wished “I never brainwashed myself” about gender, but maintained long hair “because it is pretty much my last shred of being trans.” He wrote that “I know I am not a woman, but I definitely don’t feel like a man.”

Westman appeared to partially contradict himself in an English-language letter he wrote to his family and friends, which he also published on YouTube. In the letter, he told his mother and father, “you didn’t fail me” and “I truly appreciate the love you have given me.” His writings expressed struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts, which were ongoing for years.

The shooter attended the school whose parish he targeted and his mother worked there until her retirement in 2021, about one year after the formal name change.

Westman’s plans and motivations

One video Westman posted to Youtube showed the parish as a pre-planned target.

In the video, he showed a detailed drawing of the layout of the church. A translation of some of his manifesto writings from CNN revealed that he visited the church and pretended he was interested in coming back to Catholicism. One entry discussed a visit to the parish, in which he wrote the teachers “will not be expecting an attack in the very first week of school.”

The CNN translation further shows that Westman had the desire to commit a mass shooting for much of his life, stating: “Every school I went to, I have some fantasy at some point or another of shooting up my school. Even every job.” He also describes being suspended when he was in seventh grade for asking a student “where would you hide” if there was a school shooting.

According to the translation, Westman also wrote “this is not a church or religion attack, that is not the message” and “the message is there is no message.”

However, videos he posted before the shooting suggested an anti-Catholic motivation along with an affinity for mass murderers, Satanism, racism, and antisemitism. He also conveyed threats to President Donald Trump.

In one video, Westman zoomed in on an image of Jesus Christ wearing a crown of thorns that he attached to the head of a human-shaped shooting target. He laughed before showing many anti-Christian messages written on the guns and magazines, including “take this all of you and eat it” on a rifle and “where is your God?” on a magazine.

Westman also drew an inverted pentagram on one of the magazines with the number “666” and an inverted cross on a rifle, both of which are symbols often co-opted by Satanists. A notebook he showed in one video included a drawing in which he was looking into a mirror with a rifle on his back and the reflection showed what appeared to be a demon looking back at him.

FBI Director Kash Patel announced the agency is investigating the attack as “an act of domestic terrorism and hate crime targeting Catholics.” Police have not stated a primary motive.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said in an interview with Fox & Friends that the National Institutes of Health is looking into the role that psychiatric drugs could potentially play in shootings, noting that many contain warnings of “suicidal ideation.”  

“We’re launching studies on the potential contribution of some of the SSRI drugs and some of the other psychiatric drugs that might be contributing to violence,” he said.

Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/266341/minneapolis-catholic-church-shooter-blamed-gender-and-weed-for-mental-health-issues