Police have released new details about the killer in the US Catholic school shooting – including that they “idolised” mass murderers and they wanted to “watch children suffer”.

Two children, aged eight and 10, were killed during mass at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Wednesday.

Eighteen other people were injured, including children aged between six and 15 and three adults in their 80s.

Police said Robin Westman, a male born as Robert Westman, opened fire with a rifle through the windows of the school’s church as children sat in pews.

Almost 120 rifle rounds fired, police chief says

In a news conference on Thursday, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the attacker fired 116 rifle rounds into the church.

“It is very clear that this shooter had the intention to terrorise those innocent children,” he added.

The police chief said the killer “fantasised” about the plans of other mass shooting attackers and wanted to “obtain notoriety”.

When asked about the attacker obtaining the firearms used legally, Mr O’Hara said that they did not have a criminal history or any diagnosed mental health disorders.

While they had potentially concerning social media posts, the police chief added that there was no evidence to suggest that Westman was legally barred from purchasing a firearm.

Suspect ‘wanted to watch children suffer’

Joe Thompson, acting US attorney for Minnesota, also said evidence recovered of the killer’s plans showed “pure indiscriminate hate” and that they “idolised some of the most notorious school shooters and mass murderers in our country’s history”.

“I won’t dignify the shooter’s words by repeating them,” Mr Thompson added. “They are horrific and vile, but in short, the shooter wanted to watch children suffer.”

Earlier, the mayor of Minneapolis called for a statewide and federal ban on assault weapons after the deadly attack, saying “thoughts and prayers are not going to cut it”.

“There is no reason that someone should be able to reel off 30 shots before they even have to reload,” he said.

“We’re not talking about your father’s hunting rifle gear. We’re talking about guns that are built to pierce armour and kill people.”

Thomas Klemond, interim CEO of Minneapolis’s main trauma hospital Hennepin Healthcare, said at a news conference earlier that the hospital was treating nine patients injured in the shooting.

One child at the hospital was in a critical condition, he added.

Children’s Minnesota Hospital also said that three children remain in its care as of Thursday morning.

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In a post on Facebook, the hospital said “there are no words to describe the overwhelming pain many are feeling”, adding: “We feel that pain with you.

“To the entire Annunciation community, you have our deepest condolences. During this time of unimaginable grief and loss, we want you to know that we at Children’s Minnesota are with you.

“We will always be here to care for you. And in this moment, we hurt alongside you.”

The headlines these past few weeks have focused on the National Guard deployed by the American president to the streets of Washington DC.

With combat rifles and armoured vehicles, they are an effective visual for Donald Trump.

They neatly project his power. But they are a distraction too.

While the troops may, for his supporters, represent hard presidential power in a Democrat-run city perceived to be out of control, they are not actually fighting crime (nor are they the right tool to do that) and they are not focused on the nation’s immigration challenges.

This week, they were spotted collecting litter in downtown DC.

Yet Trump’s law, order, and crime agenda has many strands which represent an unprecedented extension of presidential authority. Two weeks ago, at the White House, he told America what to expect.

“We’re going to take our capital back; we’re going to take it back,” he said.

“Massive enforcement operations targeting known gangs, drug dealers and criminal networks to get them the hell off the street, maybe get them out of the country because a lot of them came into our country illegally.

“They shouldn’t have been allowed in. They come from Venezuela. They come from all over the world. We’re going to get them the hell out. They won’t be here long.”

The real story is going on beyond the National Guard photo-op.

On Tuesday morning, I set out to see what this sweeping new presidential power really looks like on the streets of America’s capital city. I didn’t expect that it would take five minutes and a drive of just a few blocks to find what appears to be a new normal.

The neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant is a couple of miles north of the White House.

It’s a proudly multicultural and multi-income part of the city. In that sense, it’s somewhat unusual. Washington is mostly a city of bubbles – where different communities are distinct, and the wealth gap is vast.

Turning off 17th Street, the flashing lights were ahead. It was just after 7am. This residential neighbourhood had been awoken this particular morning by the sound of a commotion which was unfolding in front of me.

A construction truck had been pulled over by unmarked police vehicles. Three Latino men had been taken out, handcuffed and were in the process of being taken to the police cars.

‘You’re the Gestapo’

It was an immigration raid. The men had been detained because they were not able to prove, on demand, as they went to work, whether they were in the country legally.

Locals, drawn out of their houses, shouted at the federal agents from ICE – the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.

“Shame, shame, shame. You’re the Gestapo… why are you doing this,” they shouted.

“These are hardworking people,” one neighbour said of the men detained.

“These people work in our neighbourhood. They work in our restaurants. They’re our neighbours. They are taking hardworking people away, not criminals.”

“I’m feeling devastated for those men who were just ripped out of their lives unceremoniously,” another neighbour told me. “I’m feeling scared for my neighbours who are afraid to leave their house because they’re afraid of exactly that happening.”

“This is not making our city safe,” her partner added, his young children crying in his arms. “Pulling out workers who are an essential member of our community and being like, ‘oh, that makes DC a better place’. It doesn’t.”

The surge of federal law enforcement agents into America’s capital has been unprecedented, and their powers are too.

Using presidential authority and harnessing the unique status of Washington as a district rather than a state, Trump has taken control of local law enforcement agencies in the city.

The city’s Metropolitan Police now answer to him, not to the local government, and are working alongside federal agencies.

In a recent statement, a spokesperson for ICE said: “We will support the re-establishment of law and order and public safety in DC, which includes taking drug dealers, gang members and criminal aliens off city streets.”

Here, in Mount Pleasant, this now includes taking people, speculatively, from their vehicles on their way to work.

Twenty minutes later, whistles punctuated another moment of tension up the road.

Whistles are a new community tactic to alert people that ICE agents are in the area. Other innovative tactics include using the Waze Satnav system to report “icy streets” – in August.

On 16th Street, a small group of locals – commuters and local business owners among them – had gathered around a car with blacked-out windows. They had identified ICE agents inside.

An officer from the city’s Metropolitan Police arrived and asked what the commotion was about. The crowd told him about the ICE agents. He looked into the car, nodded, and retreated. He, too, was then jeered.

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‘This is not what we’re about’

In these neighbourhoods of overwhelmingly Democratic, left-leaning Washington DC, the mood feels edgy; not a tipping point, but creeping towards one, for sure.

“I don’t feel safer, I feel more policed,” one woman said.

A day later, a few streets away, another raid. Officers were staged at the entrance to an apartment block. Heavily armed, they appeared to be from various agencies and the city police too.

“I’m sick, this is not this country, this is not what we’re about. We’re a quiet community. It’s unbelievable we’ve come to this, unbelievable,” a woman of retirement age told me as she watched the commotion.

‘They are brutalising people’

When questioned, the officers wouldn’t confirm what their operation was about, but no one was detained and in the end they were literally shouted out of the street by locals. The anger was visceral.

“I’ve lived here for 47 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” another woman said.

“They are occupying the city and our neighbourhoods. They are brutalising people, they are taking people for no reason. We don’t want them here. This is a Donald Trump dominance performance.”

It is more than a performance, though.

If this is the plan for Democrat-run cities across the country, well then the weeks ahead look divisive indeed.

Two children, aged eight and 10, have been killed in a shooting during mass at a school in Minneapolis.

An attacker opened fire with a rifle through the windows of a church at Annunciation Catholic School and struck a group of children as they sat in pews on Wednesday morning.

The FBI has confirmed the killer has been identified as Robin Westman, a male born as Robert Westman, and is investigating the shooting as an “act of domestic terrorism” and a “hate crime targeting Catholics”.

As it happened: FBI says attack investigated as ‘terrorism’

The city’s police chief Brian O’Hara said the attacker – armed with a rifle, shotgun, and pistol – approached the side of the church and fired dozens of rounds as mass was celebrated during the first week of term.

He added that 17 other people were injured, including 14 children, two of whom were in a critical condition.

Police believe the suspect, thought to be in his early 20s and acting alone, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Mr O’Hara called the attack in Minnesota a “deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshipping”.

“The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible.”

He also said a wooden plank had been used to barricade some side doors.

Authorities found a smoke bomb but no explosives at the scene, Mr O’Hara said.

Three adults in 80s among those injured

Hennepin Healthcare, the main trauma hospital in Minneapolis, received 11 patients, including nine children – aged six to 14 – and two adults, emergency medicine chair Dr Thomas Wyatt said.

He said four of the patients were taken to operating rooms.

Children’s Minnesota, a paediatric trauma hospital, said in a statement that five children were admitted.

At a later news conference, Mr O’Hara said three adults in their 80s are among those injured in the attack.

He added that Westman had scheduled a manifesto to be released on YouTube, which “appeared to show him at the scene and included some disturbing writings”.

The video has since been taken down with the assistance of the FBI.

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‘So much’ gunfire, witness says

Bill Bienemann, a witness to the shooting, told Sky News it went on “for several minutes – a long time for live gunfire”.

“I know what gunfire sounds like, and I was shocked,” he added. “I said there’s no way that could be gunfire, there was so much of it.

“It seemed like a rifle, it certainly didn’t sound like a handgun, so he must have reloaded several times.”

The pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade school had an all-school mass scheduled at 8.15am local time on Wednesday morning (2.15pm UK time), according to its website.

Monday was the first day of the school semester.

Mayor calls shooting ‘unspeakable act’

At the first news conference, Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey said the shooting was an “unspeakable act”.

“Children are dead,” he said. “There are families that have a deceased child. You cannot put into words the gravity, the tragedy, or the absolute pain of this situation.”

Speaking later, and joined by Governor Tim Walz, Mr Frey said that the “Minneapolis family” has stepped up in “thousands of different ways” after the shooting.

“The way that they acted during the severe threat and danger was nothing short of heroic,” he says.

“This is a tragic and horrible event that should never occur.”

He added: “Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainise our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity.”

Mr Walz said: “We often come to these and say these are unspeakable tragedies or there are no words for this, there shouldn’t be words for these types of incidents because they shouldn’t happen.”

The school’s headteacher Matt DeBoer added: “To any of our students and families and staff watching right now, I love you. You’re so brave, and I’m so sorry this happened.”

Senator: Girl ‘had to watch several of her friends get shot’

Speaking to MSNBC, Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar said she had called one of her longtime employees who had three children in the school during the shooting.

The senator described the call with the mother as “one of the most upsetting things I’ve ever heard”.

“These kids are doing an all-school mass and had to watch several of her friends get shot – one in the back, one in the neck,” Ms Klobuchar added.

“And they all got down under the pews and she – her daughter, of course, was not shot – but her daughter ended up being the one to tell one of the dads of one of the other kids that his daughter had been shot.”

Responding to the reports, US President Donald Trump said on Truth Social: “I have been fully briefed on the tragic shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

“The FBI quickly responded and they are on the scene. The White House will continue to monitor this terrible situation.”