Bullets shattered stained-glass windows and struck children during a back-to-school Mass at a Catholic school, killing two children and injuring at least fourteen children and three adults. Witnesses, including a ten-year-old who sat two seats from the broken window, described hiding under pews and seeing friends wounded. Survivors and families will carry deep trauma from the attack. The shooter allegedly left ideological signs and reportedly purchased three weapons lawfully. High local gun prevalence and a political climate resistant to gun reform are presented as obstacles to changing laws. The incident underscores the vulnerability of schools and sacred spaces to gun violence.
You don't have to be Catholic to be horrified by bullets shattering stained-glass windows to kill Catholic school children, while they're at a "back to school" Mass, as we saw in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning. But as a Catholic school kid who attended many of those Masses (plus many other holidays that required all-school Masses), I can see it. Too clearly.
A 10-year-old boy who was in the church, Weston Halsne, interviewed (unethically, in my opinion) by multiple news sources, said he was only two kids away from the shattering window. Weston could place himself. I believe it; those windows are definitive. He said a friend jumped on his back, under the pews, and that child got shot. "But he's OK."
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