Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis shook his fist in sorrow and anger, spitting out words before the hastily assembled television cameras.
“Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now,” he said on Wednesday, referring to the three words invariably echoed by politicians after mass shootings. “These kids were literally praying. It was the first week of school. They were in a church.”
Images of American school shootings have become all too routine, a blur of anguished parents, uniformed police officers and traumatized students fleeing school buildings with small hands raised in the air.
But for the city of Minneapolis, which has weathered trauma on trauma of late, that morning’s attack on students gathered for Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church was, in the mayor’s words, “unspeakable.” It left the city and the country with a picture that was uniquely shocking and violent: A gunman aiming through a church window at children assembled inside, firing dozens of rounds while they dove for cover beneath the sturdy wooden pews.
“My heart is broken as I think about students, teachers, clergy and parishioners and the horror they witnessed in a church,” said Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis, “a place where we should feel safe.”
Two children, ages 8 and 10, were killed. Fourteen others and three adults were wounded.
Minneapolis is a big city accustomed to gun violence. But the Twin Cities have suffered more than their share this summer, including the assassination of State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, the wounding of a Democratic state senator, John A. Hoffman, and his wife, and a spasm of gun violence just this week. The city has been tested by the murder of George Floyd in 2020, by the ensuing riots and fires, and by recurring urban and political trauma.
On Wednesday, doctors and nurses at Minneapolis hospitals rushed to treat the church victims, the second time in 24 hours they handled a mass-casualty event. A separate shooting on Tuesday in Minneapolis left one person dead and six others wounded.
The neighborhood in South Minneapolis, where Annunciation Catholic School stands, is usually quiet, even idyllic.
When the shooting occurred, Annique London, an neighbor and Annunciation parent, saw her day come to a sudden, horrible halt.
Neighbors texted each other frantically, asking if children were safe. Ms. London, whose youngest child graduated from Annunciation in May, was in shock, replaying the graduations and other family milestones that they had celebrated in the church.
“It’s a very supportive community,” she said. “The school has been around for a long time. You have students who have grandparents who have gone to school there, cousins, siblings.”
Hundreds of students from preschool to eighth grade attended Annunciation. They were much like other American schoolchildren of these generations: trained to evade a gunman who has come to kill them.
Students routinely practiced active-shooter drills in their classrooms, and the entrance of the school was locked and fortified.
In the adjacent church, hundreds of students had gathered on Wednesday for the first all-school Mass of the school year, when a gunman began shooting at them through a window, authorities said.
Norris Roberts said that his 12-year-old grandson, Andre Gunther, suffered a stomach injury and had undergone surgery. And he has psychological wounds that will run deep, his grandfather said, noting that Andre had seen a girl next to him shot in the head.
“It’s horrific for him to go through that, and it’s going to be a lifelong problem for him,” Mr. Roberts said. “I can’t fathom that happened and you being stable. It’s not normal.”
Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, has been called upon to comment on gun violence with regularity this year.
She knew the two state lawmakers who were shot in Minnesota at their homes. And Ms. Klobuchar said that one of her former staff members has three children who were in the church when the shooting happened.
“She watched a child get shot in the stomach and another in the neck,” Ms. Klobuchar said. “Kids were scrambling down in the pews to protect themselves.”
At an afternoon news conference on the shooting, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said, “There shouldn’t be words for these kinds of incidents because they should not happen.”
In south Minneapolis, near the church, neighbors tied blue and green ribbons around trees on Wednesday afternoon, trying to show support to the victims and their families.
Half a block away from the police tape cordoning off the church grounds, neighbors sat under the shade of an elm tree, cans of hard cider in their hands. All had heard the shots; all had seen parents spilling out of minivans and homes and running frantically toward the building, and had watched shellshocked students in their school uniforms shepherded away.
Scott Rabe, a neighbor, said he stepped onto his lawn as a woman with two small children pulled up.
“She was distraught,” he said. “I just kind of gave her a hug, and she said, ‘They’re shooting our kids. They’re shooting our kids in the church.’ And everything just stopped in that moment. You feel powerless. What can you do? You want to help but just — you don’t know what to do.”
Hilary Walker, another neighbor, was getting ready for work when she heard what sounded like the hammering of roofers on a nearby house.
It wasn’t until she tried to leave the neighborhood that she saw emergency vehicles pouring in and turning toward the school as children spilled out of the doors.
Her first thought was, “Again?” she said. “You know, it’s a weird feeling when you’re not super surprised that it happened because it happens so much.”
Ann Hinga Klein and Christina Morales contributed reporting.
Julie Bosman is the Chicago bureau chief for The Times, writing and reporting stories from around the Midwest.
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