Minneapolis school shooter who killed children, 8 and 10, as they prayed pictured

The suspect behind a horrific shooting at a school in Minneapolis has been named as 23-year-old Robin Westman.

Westman's identity was confirmed by a law enforcement official who was not authorised to discuss the ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity. Westman is believed to have a parent who worked at the Annunciation Catholic school, where two children aged eight and 10 are confirmed to have died.

Police said the third person killed was the shooter.

Seventeen other people were wounded, 14 of them children, the police chief said. Two children remain in a critical condition.

Initial police findings suggest the shooter worked alone, while further probes are looking into a possible motive.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the shooter — armed with a rifle, shotgun and pistol — approached the side of the church and shot through the windows toward the children sitting in the pews during Mass. Chief O'Hara aid it appears all or most of the shooting was done from outside. Police found no casings inside.

Authorities also found a smoke bomb but no explosives at the scene.

READ MORE: Minneapolis shooting UPDATES: School children, 8 and 10, dead as gunman opens fire

Hennepin Healthcare, the main trauma hospital in Minneapolis, received 11 patients, including nine children and two adults, said Dr. Thomas Wyatt, the chair of emergency medicine, during a press briefing.

There were no deaths among any of the 11 patients brought there. Four of the patients were taken to operating rooms.

The children brought to Hennepin were ages six through 14.

US President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to say the White House will "continue to monitor the terrible situation", before asking people to join him in "praying for everyone involved."

Details since the shooting appear to point towards the alleged cruelty involved. Chief O'Hara noted that a wooden plank was placed to barricade some of the side doors.

This was 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 said.

Bill Bienemann, who lives near by, said he heard “so much” gunfire from shots that were “sporadic”. He told CNN affiliate KARE: “I was on a call, all the windows of our home were open. I know what gunfire sounds like and, and, I could tell. I was shocked. I said there’s no way that that could be gunfire.”

He added: “It was so, it was semiautomatic, it seemed like a rifle. Certainly didn’t sound like handgun and so he must’ve reloaded you know several times for sure.”

Bienemann’s daughter, Alexandra, said she attended the school from kindergarten to 8th grade, finishing in 2014. After she heard of the shooting, she said she was shaking and crying, and her boss told her to take the day off.

“It breaks my heart, makes me sick to my stomach, knowing that there are people I know who are either injured or maybe even killed,” Alexandra Bienemann said. “It doesn’t make me feel safe at all in this community that I have been in for so long.”

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