A MAGA-aligned InfoWars pundit doing a victory lap for reporting that the Minneapolis mass shooter was transgener got checked by his co-host for calling it an “unbelievable victory.”
Owen Shroyer, who was among the first to uncover that the suspect was transgender, described the revelation—and the media’s subsequent coverage of it—as a “paramount moment,” likening it to “hitting back-to-back grand slams.”
“We just went through a paramount moment where the institutional cover-up has been beaten by free independent press,” Shroyer said, as first reported by Raw Story. “God bless Infowars. Unbelievable victory today. I mean, this is, I, I’m, I’m stunned.”
His co-host, Kyle Seraphin, took exception to calling the day an “unbelievable victory” as it came on the heels of two children—aged 8 and 10—being shot dead as they prayed during morning mass at the Annunciation Catholic School. Seventeen others, including 14 children, were also injured in the shooting.
“It doesn’t feel like a win, knowing that there’s kids who didn’t survive this,” Seraphin told Shroyer.
Shroyer, 36, spent 60 days in jail for his actions during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in 2021. Seraphin is a former FBI agent whose security clearance was revoked by the Biden administration.
FBI Director Kash Patel said Wednesday that the shooting by Robin Westman is being probed as a hate crime against Catholics.
Minneapolis officials said Westman fired through stained-glass windows into a church full of children. It was the first mass of the school year at Annunciation, which serves students from Pre-K through 8th grade.
Local police have not given an official motive for the attack. Since-deleted posts on the Facebook page of Annunciation Catholic Church showed that Westman’s mother, Mary Grace Westman, worked there for five years before retiring in 2021. She did not respond to a call from the Daily Beast.
Westman posted a manifesto—written in both English and Russian—on YouTube that was quickly removed by the site. The manifesto expressed fascination with past mass killers, in particular Parkland gunman Nikolas Cruz. Other videos posted on YouTube showed Westman brandishing a rifle with “kill Trump” painted on it.
Right-wingers have seized on Westman’s gender identity, claiming that being transgender is a mental disorder and that it led to Wednesday’s massacre. Many have pointed to a similar attack at The Covenant School in Nashville, a Christian school that was also targeted by a transgender shooter in 2023, as further proof of their claim.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey denounced attempts to use the shooting to denigrate transgender people.
“I have heard about a whole lot of hate that’s being directed at our trans community,” Frey said at a press conference Wednesday, according to Newsweek. “Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity … Kids died today. This needs to be about them.”
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