“I want to be a shooter who is remembered. I don’t think I want to be forgotten,” Robin Westman wrote in a coded diary entry dated May 25, 2025.
“I think about my face on video. I think about my notebook being scanned, my words being quoted. I think about propagandists spreading my script. I think about this being the third biography written for the archive of shooters. Why not me? The world wants new names.”
Three months later, Westman stood outside Annunciation Church and School during a morning mass on the first day of school. Around 8:30 on August 27, 2025, Westman barricaded an emergency exit, and fired through the chapel’s windows at the crowd inside.
Police reported finding 116 rifle casings, three shotgun shell casings, and one pistol round on the scene.
By the time the attack was over, ending with Westman taking their life in the building’s parking lot, two children were dead. Eighteen other children between the ages of eight and 15 and three adults, all over 80-years-old, were injured.
Westman, a 23-year-old living in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, was a former student at Annunciation Catholic School where they finished the eighth grade. Police said that Westman did not have an extensive criminal history.
A shocking and senseless action, in the hours after, evidence began to surface that Westman had been plotting the attack for months. Under a sparsely used and since-deleted “Robin W” YouTube account, Westman released two videos related to the shooting.
These videos included a voluminous journal in which the perpetrator describes the preparation, planning, and self-ascribed reasons for deliberately targeting a building full of children. Written over many weeks, it offers insights, curated by Westman, into the violent radicalization and mobilization of a troubled individual obsessed with school shooters, their own death, and being remembered.
“I know that if I ever carry it out, the point will be obvious: it’s not about survival, it’s about being remembered,” they wrote. “Not erased, not ignored. I want to be archived like the others, recorded and studied.”
Another video contains a suicide note and a showcase of the firearms and gear Westman planned to use in their attack—all of which was covered in white writing containing numerous references to past attackers, memes, and slurs.
Understanding a Violent Subculture
The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism has obtained copies of the videos and analyzed the contents. Westman may have acted alone in the murder of two children, but their actions did not emerge from a vacuum. The senseless killing at Annunciation Church by Robin Westman is not a novel act, but is part of a proliferating influence of a subculture that not only glorifies violence, but also encourages the next prospective mass murderer to carry out a strike of their own.
Dubbed the True Crime Community (TCC), this is a network of podcasts, articles, web forums, social media collectives, and more, dedicated to exploring a variety of crimes and the criminals who perpetrate them. Often this involves the sharing of footage, images, and other media related to notable killers. Another stratum of this network includes the Crime Gore Community (CGC) who amass and share graphically violent and disturbing content, particularly of violent criminal activity, and likewise lionize and elevate the perpetrators of targeted killings like the one at Annunciation Church.
Often serving as a feeder of content for the larger TCC, CGC participants effectively preserve gore content through platforms like file sharing services, barely moderated social media, and dedicated websites and forums.
From its earliest pages, Westman’s journal details a person obsessed with not only learning about mass shooters, but consuming graphic footage of these attacks. They demonstrate an extensive knowledge of the lives and crimes of multiple perpetrators of mass casualty events and have created a personal pantheon of what they view as successful shooters.
“I imagine myself taking the same stance, the same look, the same pose when firing. I imagine myself caught on camera, filmed in my moment,” Westman wrote in the journal, adding later, “I want to join that list. I want my legacy built into the same category.”
Westman desired to end their life in a way that they viewed as meaningful. The self-reported years-long obsession with the legacy of mass shooters primed them to achieve the recognition they felt denied in life through a brutal act of violence.
Video 1: “There Is No Message”
A screen capture of a handgun included in a video by Robin Westman posted to YouTube. The side is painted with the words “There is no message.” (Source: YouTube).
The first video, titled “Ehehe,” appears to have been recorded using a mobile phone. The videos were posted on August 27, 2025, the day Westman carried out the attack on the church.
Opening on a revolver and a guttural moaning noise, the camera quickly pans to several handwritten pieces of paper that are laid out on a bed, the letter constitutes a message to the shooter’s family, to whom Westman is apologetic and repeatedly recognizes that the attack will impact and harm them.
“I don’t expect forgiveness and I don’t expect an apology,” the note opens.
In this letter, Westman echoes claims made in the journal. The offender had been plagued by the thought of committing an act of mass violence for years. This is combined with an internalized self-hatred, a self-diagnosed cancer, with a persistent depression that made life seemingly unlivable.
“I am not well. I am not right,” the note reads. “I am a sad person, haunted by these thoughts that do not go away. I know this is wrong but I cannot seem to stop myself. I am severely depressed and have been suicidal for years.”
The message is signed as Robin M. Westman and includes the image of a small bird. This bird appears on several of the ammunition magazines and firearms shown later in the same video. It is impossible to know for sure, but the bird appears to be a robin, and a possible attempt by Westman to add themselves to the collective memory of shooters.
Images taken from one of Robin Westman’s YouTube videos showing a bird drawn on a suicide note and on the outside of a rifle magazine. (Source: YouTube).
The robin, unlike other symbols, appears in the suicide letter, the journal, and on the guns.
Dumping a handful of ammunition onto the letter, Westman uses the rest of the 10-minute video to showcase the weapons and gear that were to be used in the attack. The footage shows two pistols—one revolver and what appears to be a Taurus GX2—splayed out on a bed. These are flanked by a Mossberg 590S shotgun, an AR-15 rifle, seven rifle magazines, three pistol magazines, a single smoke bomb and a piece of wood with another smoke bomb taped to it. The rest is comprised of tactical gear and clothing.
In what has unfortunately become a common trope among recent mass shooters, there are irony-laden references to memes, past killers, and often contradictory symbols and iconography. The most apparent reference is in white writing on the black colored weapons and ammunition magazines, imitating the perpetrator of the 2019 massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand, who murdered 51 people at two mosques. Brenton Tarrant carried out his attack with six firearms—a collection of rifles, shotguns, and a pistol—that included the same style of white writing on dark colored guns.
Similar to Tarrant, who wrote the names of numerous perpetrators of racially-motivated attacks on the weapons used during his massacre, Westman’s firearms (and videos) are replete with references to previous killers, as well as other memes or callbacks to aspects of internet culture.
Tarrant’s firearm writing was similarly replicated by Payton Gendron, who attacked a grocery store killing 10 people in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, in 2022.
Gendron and Tarrant’s names, as well as “-51,” referring to the amount of people killed by Tarrant, are written on Westman’s firearms.
The sheer number of references and writings on the weapons precludes listing them all. Many are epitaphs to past killers that Westman also mentions in their journal. These include Anders Breivik, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, James Holmes, Vladislav Roslyakov, Charles Whitman, Marc Lépine, Adam Lanza, and several others.
Some of the writing contains racist and antisemitic messaging, including on one of the smoke bombs that had the words “Jew Gas” written on the side, a holster reading “six million wasn’t enough,” as well as racial slurs written across the firearms including “n****r” and “spic.” Others were niche references to online comic strips, a YouTube streamer’s alter ego, skateboarding, songs, movies, and memes. All of them indicating an immersion in a variety of online subcultures.
Despite the writings referencing antisemitism, racist phrases, and significant figures related to past ideologically-motivated attacks, there is no clear and coherent political message behind Westman’s violent actions. One pistol displays the name of “Vicki Weaver,” who was killed by federal marshals in the Ruby Ridge, Idaho, standoff between law enforcement and her family. Weaver is an important figure among some gun activists and far-right groups, but she shares little in common with shooters like Adam Lanza, the 2012 perpetrator of a massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 20 students and six adults dead, or Robert Crimo, who killed seven and injured 50 in a 2022 Highland Park, Illinois, attack, individuals Westman holds up as an inspiration. A symbol used by Crimo appears several times on the firearms in the video.
A screen shot of Robin Westman’s firearm video. It shows a symbol used by Highland Park shooter Robert Crimo from a music video he produced before his attack. (Source YouTube).
Video 2: A Window Into Radicalization
A screen capture of a journal shared by Robin Westman in a video on YouTube before their attack on Annunciation Church. (Source: YouTube).
The second post on their YouTube channel contained footage of a journal, which Westman is alleged to have kept in the months preceding the attack. The more than 20-minute journal recording is filmed facing a gun cleaning mat. In the video, a pair of hands place a spiral notebook into view, turning the more than 200 pages one-by-one.
Each page contains handwritten entries beginning on May 23, 2025. The entries are written using the Cyrillic alphabet but are phonetically English. Russian phrases and words are also used but infrequently and sometimes incorrectly. A translated version of the journal was provided to GPAHE by researcher Marc-André Argentino.
The journal, which traces Westman’s journey from fantasizing about an attack to detailed preparations, does not offer a clear ideological reason for carrying out the killing. Political targets are suggested, but only for the impact and speculation they will cause after the attack had been carried out, not to achieve a political goal or a symbolic strike.
The journal begins aspirationally, thinking about a mass shooting rather than committing one. Westman’s writing discusses the seemingly ever present fantasy of harming others, but often voiced doubts about being able to successfully carry out an attack. Westman worries repeatedly of the difficulties this would cause to their friends and family.
In the early pages, Westman discusses their fascination with explicit gore content, particularly footage of mass shootings. The journal said these thoughts went back to the seventh grade and claims that this early fixation led to research on the backgrounds of mass killers.
These first pages in May particularly linger on the topic of Sandy Hook killer, Adam Lanza. While the journal shows an extensive knowledge of the names and actions of numerous mass killers, Westman reports an early interest in Lanza, reading extensively about his life and the notes he left behind.
Other killers, like school shooters Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17 people at a school in Parkdale, Florida, and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who murdered 13 students in the 1999 Columbine, Colorado, massacre, are also repeatedly referenced as examples of “losers” who had become “immortalized.”
Outside of the constant references to previous shooters, Westman’s journal is filled with claims of isolation, depression, and resentment toward family members. Suicidal ideation is a constant and recurring theme throughout the entire document.
Westman dedicates pages to pondering a location for an attack, debating attacks at office buildings, synagogues, and concerts. Other times, Westman mentioned political targets, specifically naming Trump and Biden, and other times it was schools and malls.
The importance seemed to be the impact and body count, not the target.
Conversely, Westman also expresses fear that they will eventually take violent action, lamenting that so many “cry out for help” on the internet “but no one listens. And in that silence, things fester.”
In June, the diary shows Westman wishing someone would intervene to stop them. But they also noted how “leakages,” revealing information indicating they were planning an attack, on platforms like Telegram and Discord has gotten others caught in the past.
Near the end of June 2025, the notion of staging an attack began to become more affirmative, less of a desire and more of a search for a cogent plan.
Westman reports applying for a gun permit and purchasing a shotgun and several types of ammunition. The waiting period for the shotgun troubled Westman as they became increasingly desperate to carry out the shooting and end their life in the process.
In an entry dated June 28, 2025, they state, “I’m ready to put my all toward my attack.”
During this period, Westman becomes increasingly fatalistic, angry, and determined to die. Westman expresses almost exclusively self-abasement and degradation, often referring to themselves as a monster or terrorist, being placed among other offenders. The writing is frantic and curt at points. Other passages indulge in long fantastical descriptions of violence.
Westman reports committing acts of self-harm like cutting and expresses an emergent belief that they had cancer—it is not clear if this is an actual diagnosis.
As July starts, Westman reports trouble focusing at work and slipping into violent fantasies to get through the days. The writing often loops, repeating phrases and words. Westman categorizes this as indicative of their own thinking, which is trapped in a “loop” of thoughts pushing them towards action.
“I want to kill. I want to kill. I want to kill. I want to kill,” Westman wrote. “They cannot stop me. They cannot stop what is coming. They cannot stop the storm.”
Amid this chaos, the commitment to carry out an attack emerges. If the journal was at one time a place of self-reflection, this is discarded and becomes a tool to actualize the need to cause harm. Fantasy has become inevitability in Westman’s writing.
By July 8, 2025, they are beginning to figure out training, transitioning from talk of constant visualization, to concrete preparation.
Despite the commitment, Westman stated several times that they could be stopped from carrying out the attack. This is another point where Westman acknowledged the intention for the journal to become part of their postmortem mythos.
“The journal is the outline of the process. I build the truth in frames, from a top-down perspective, inside my head. These are the last test pages, the last scroll forward, the final drafts people can just pause on and screenshot.”
Also in these entries, Westman mentions considering “the Catholic church and school” in their attack, though they do not say which one.
Money also becomes a problem. Westman considers the cost of the operation and expresses having difficulty working, as carrying out the attack is the only important part of their life. Work is viewed only as a means to obtain more firearms and ammunition, though also as a distraction from training and planning.
Aspects of Westman’s personal life leak into the journal, though like any actions outside of attack preparation, this discussion of friendships and relationships is referred to as an impediment to carrying out the attack.
The subject of Westman’s gender identity has also yielded significant media coverage, as quotes have been lifted to demonize transgender people and present a causal link between differing gender identities and violence. Since the shooting, there have been reports that the Department of Justice is considering a blanket ban on transgender people owning firearms and that the FBI is considering labeling all trans people as “violent extremists.”
Westman’s mother submitted a legal name change in 2019 that was approved the following year by a judge. The reason given was that her child wanted a name to reflect their gender identity.
In the pages of the journal, Westman discusses feeling like a woman and a desire to be a woman, though throughout the writing they use male and female pronouns. Gender is included as one feature of the grievances expressed by Westman, though is not a central theme in the writing.
As July ends, many of the journal entries are erratic. Short, seemingly unconnected thoughts follow one another. By July 19, 2025, Westman picks a date, August 25, again mentioning a school. They discuss plans to scout the site, details about the parking lot, and to note the windows.
In the midst of all of this, Westman still expresses some desire to stop, or rather for someone to stop them, but repeatedly the journal paints the thoughts and planning of the killing as unavoidable.
“I feel covered in red flags, screaming for help, but no one sees me,” they write.
As August begins, the journal vacillates between Westman’s incredible self-loathing and their increasingly active preparations for the attack. This month spells almost a complete end to Westman’s reflections of potentially being stopped before the attack. Considerations of the impact on family members are also abandoned.
Post-attack, Westman believes the monster will supplant their self-image of a weak and undesirable failure with a mysterious killer, joining the ranks of his mass murder idols who were similarly remade in the blood and the violence they perpetrated.
Westman begins to take account of police response time, the layout of the church, and emergency exits. By August 10, 2025, Westman reports watching videos taken of themselves conducting gun drills, practicing the walk through the parking lot, entering the building, and eventually moving to the stairs.
On the actual day of the attack, a locked exterior door prevented Westman from entering the building. This undoubtedly saved lives.
“I feel like my fate is sealed, like I have already been written into the same cursed story as the others before me. There is no escape. The urge to kill grows daily, stronger than anything else. It is consuming me, filling me like fire. I can’t fight it off anymore. I don’t want to fight it off. I want to embrace it.”
There are a few mentions of social media throughout the journal, but rarely does Westman give much indication of having any of their own outside the YouTube channel. On August 18, 2025, they mention using Telegram to watch footage of violence.
On August 19, 2025, eight days before the attack, Westman’s journal is a series of rehearsals. “Park car. Mask on. Rifle ready. Glock backup. Sixty feet. Door. Burst. Stairs. Hall.”
By the final entry, August 21, 2025, Westman had already begun talking about the event as though it had happened, or as if it was happening.
An Artifact, Not A Record
Perpetrators of mass attacks will sometimes leave deliberately crafted (or deliberately chaotic) final messages and digital footprints. There is an expectation that the notes, manifestos, and personal details of the shooters will be poured over, analyzed, and reported on.
The more complicated and esoteric the remnants the attacker leaves behind, the more inside jokes and callbacks to other killers, the greater the legacy of intrigue and interest they receive after the act, or so they seem to believe.
The exact degree of how much the journal is performative died with Westman. It makes up a valuable artifact of their radicalization, but should not be viewed as a reliable record of events.
The same applies to the weapons. Many of the names and phrases written onto the firearms were meant to be macabre inside jokes between the perpetrator and readers looking with the fascination that Westman reported driving their own fantasies.
Regardless of the lack of a prevailing ideological motivation, or rather the presence of a mixed bag of motivations, networks promoting violence to radicalized young people have cost more children their lives.
