'These kids were literally praying': The Minneapolis school shooting
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 August 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
On Wednesday morning, students from Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis were in church for an all-school Mass when a shooter opened fire through the church windows.
An 8-year-old and a 10-year-old from the private K-8 school were killed, and the shooter died after shooting himself. More than a dozen people were injured, and several remain in critical condition.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) addressed reporters in a moving news conference about the shooting:
“Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying. It was the first week of school. They were in a church. These are kids that should be learning with their friends. They should be playing on the playground. They should be able to go to school or church in peace, without the fear or risk of violence. And their parents should have the same kind of assurance.”
Reporter Kim Bellware joins host Elahe Izadi to walk through what The Post has learned about the suspect and about how the tragic event fits into the nation’s history of gun violence.
Today’s show was produced by Laura Benshoff, Rennie Svirnovskiy and Thomas Lu. It was mixed by Sam Bair and edited by Reena Flores and Ariel Plotnick. Thanks to Reis Thebault,. Hannah Knowles, Colby Itkowitz, Elliot Smilowitz and Gina Harkins.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just a heads up to our listeners. |
| 0:03.8 | Today, we're going to be discussing some details of a school shooting, which may be hard to listen to. |
| 0:10.5 | Wednesday morning started off as an exciting one for Brooks Turner. |
| 0:14.9 | It was the first week of school for his daughter, Ayla. |
| 0:18.0 | She's a pre-K student at Enunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. |
| 0:22.5 | So I dropped her off at like eight, and she went straight in, seemed like excited for the day. |
| 0:28.0 | And I called my wife just to be like, Ayla went in, like, and was excited. |
| 0:32.4 | He told this to post-reporter Reese Tebow over the phone. After drop-off, Turner started driving to work. |
| 0:40.0 | Then he got a call from his mother. There was a shooting at Ayla's school. |
| 0:45.4 | Students had been sitting for mass. A shooter walked up and through a church window, opened fire |
| 0:53.1 | at the pews. |
| 0:58.0 | The shooter killed an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old. |
| 1:02.4 | 17 people were injured in all, 14 of them children. |
| 1:05.8 | Turner frantically called the school. |
| 1:13.4 | Even though I was told that all the preschool kids were safe, I was terrified. I also didn't know if that meant that the elementary kids were safe. And they were safe. Sorry, my daughter's sitting here with |
| 1:21.5 | Is that Ayla? Yeah, this is it. |
| 1:24.5 | Ela wasn't attending Mass. Her classroom was in the basement of the church. |
| 1:29.6 | So she heard the shooting happening above her. |
| 1:33.3 | She told me that they heard like really loud banging |
| 1:37.5 | and it was like somebody was trying to break down the ceiling above them. |
| 1:41.3 | She said that she was scared and a police officer picked her up and carried her |
| 1:45.7 | and then I got down and ran. |
... |
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