MINNEAPOLIS — Mike Garrity was walking home from the gym Wednesday morning when he heard a series of loud noises that he initially thought were coming from a nail gun at a construction site.
But when Garrity got closer to the Annunciation Catholic Church, he realized something terrible had happened.
Garrity, 64, who lives across the street from the church and the adjoining Catholic elementary school, saw about a dozen crying children stream out of the school. At least three of them were covered in blood, he said in a phone interview.
He saw adults who appeared to be members of the school’s faculty or staff. “Don’t go in there,” one of them said.
Garrity soon learned that a person had opened fire during a morning Mass. The suspect, identified by federal law enforcement as Robin Westman, killed at least two children and injured 17 others, including 14 kids. Westman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
Weston Halsne, 10, a fifth grader at the school, told NBC affiliate KARE that his friend Victor was shot while lying on top of him.
Weston said that he ran under a pew while shots came through the stained glass windows and covered his head — an active shooting tactic that the school practiced on a regular basis. But the students had never practiced such a drill in church, he added.
Halsne’s father, Grant, said the shooter shot out the stained glass of the church from outside the building.
“This was the third day of school,” Grant Halsne told NBC News while leaving the scene. “It’s just a cowardly act. It’s pretty sick.”
The Rev. Bob Hart, a former interim pastor at Annunciation, said the violence was practically inconceivable to him.
“It’s hard to believe this could happen at a Catholic Mass,” said Hart, 77, who described the church and school as a “very close-knit and very supportive” community.
Hart said he did not know the identities of the victims. But if they become public, he added, he expects to recognize many of the names.
In an interview, a nearby resident said she ran for cover after hearing shots ring out; another was inside her home and told her daughter to get into their home’s basement for fear of being hit by a ricochet.
Andrew Winchell was on his porch, roughly a block away from the church, when he heard piercing noises that he, too, mistook for a nail gun.
“It was this incredibly loud and repeated ‘pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop,’ then a pause, then another ‘pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.’ It just kept going and going,” said Winchell, a 42-year-old construction worker and stay-at-home dad.
Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives recovered at least one firearm from the scene, and they are beginning the tracing protocol, according to an ATF source in Minneapolis.
It is not yet known whether the suspect legally obtained the weapons or whether they had any extensive criminal history.
Parents and other members of the Annunciation community converged on the church Wednesday to reunite with their loved ones. Parents, some in tears, walked from the school, clasping their kids by the hands or carrying them out on their shoulders.
The father of two boys who attend the school said he was at work when he got a text message from his wife. She said shots had been fired, and only one of their sons had been located.
“I immediately left work,” said the father, who would only give his first name, Tyler, as he spoke to NBC News from outside the school. “I was a nervous wreck. I was just shocked and in disbelief that this was happening at Annunciation. I couldn’t get here quick enough.”
He was ultimately reunited with both of his boys.
The Rev. Erich Rutten, a Roman Catholic priest whose parish is near Annunciation, went inside the school to offer support to families trying to make sense of the tragedy.
Rutten said he saw parents in “great, great anxiety and grief,” including some who were “wailing and crying, some stooping to the ground,” he said. He hugged the people he recognized.
Then he began to pray the rosary, and others joined in. “We’re asking God to help in this situation,” Rutten said.
Natasha Korecki reported from Minneapolis, and Daniel Arkin from New York.
