Guests - Betsy Smith, Laurie Moore

Minneapolis Church Shooting: Examining the Tragedy and Aftermath

The Tragic Event and Immediate Response

On Wednesday, a horrific shooting occurred at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis during a service marking the beginning of the school year. According to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara, two children, ages 8 and 10, were killed where they sat in the pews. An additional 14 students between the ages of 6 and 15 were injured, along with three adults in their 80s. Four people required surgery.

Kathleen Winn, host of Win Tucson, invited Betsy Brantner Smith, spokesperson for the National Police Association, to discuss the shooting and its implications. Together, they host a segment called "Smith and Winn" when collaborating on police matters.

"This is going to be a shooting that we do talk about for a while," noted Winn. "This one struck a nerve obviously with me yesterday but so many people as I listened through the rest of the day."

Breaking News and Initial Response

Betsy Brantner Smith shared breaking news that the Minneapolis Police Department was still over 40% short in their staffing numbers, according to the police chief's admission on Newsmax. Smith predicted that the chief, who works under Mayor Jacob Frey, might not remain in his position for long.

Smith also pointed out that while the police chief welcomed prayers from around the country, Mayor Frey had previously "mocked Christians for praying, mocked the children in the church who were shot for praying."

"I think this is going to be what we call an unfreezing event for the country," Smith said, "because people are starting to realize that it's not the guns."

Understanding the Shooter

As more information emerged, a disturbing picture of the shooter, Robert "Robin" Westman, came into focus. The 20-year-old had legally changed his name from Robert to Robin with his parents' assistance when he was 17.

"This young man was taken to court by his parents and assisted in changing his name from Robert to Robin and changing his identity from male to female," Smith explained. "And yet in his manifesto yesterday that he released himself during the shooting, he had it timed out on YouTube, he said 'I don't want to dress girly all the time but I guess sometimes I like it. I know I'm not a woman but I definitely don't feel like a man.'"

Smith described this as evidence of a "young man who is confused and who is in deep need of counseling, not a legal sex change."

The shooter's manifesto and equipment contained disturbing elements, including anti-semitic writings and phrases like "F the children" and "Kill Donald Trump" written on magazines for his firearms. In his video, which lasted 11 minutes, he demonstrated erratic behavior, switching between apologetic tones and what Winn described as "demonic" voices.

The Mental Health Connection and Gender Dysphoria

Smith emphasized that gender dysphoria is classified as a mental illness. "It is okay if you're a man and you want to dress up like a woman. It's okay if you're a woman and you want to dress more masculine or dress up like a man. But you ultimately were given a sex when you were born and there's two sexes, not 40."

The shooter expressed awareness that his behavior might be reportable under Minnesota's red flag laws, saying he couldn't cut his hair because "it would be an embarrassing defeat and it might be a concerning change of character that could get me reported."

Smith noted: "When you fill out that FFL form, that federal firearms form, you have to indicate if you are being treated for a mental illness. The Democrats have removed transgender gender dysphoria as a mental illness, so someone who is deeply disturbed like this young man is no longer considered mentally ill."

Smith clarified: "We don't hate transgender people. We want to surround them with love and compassion, but we want to help them, and this young man needed help."

The Medication Question

During the discussion, a caller named Jeff raised the important connection between antidepressants (specifically SSRIs) and violent acts.

"This is related to your conversation but it never seems to get talked about, and that is the connection between antidepressants and these insane acts of violence that become more and more prevalent," Jeff said, citing an example of a military service member who committed violence while likely on antidepressants.

Smith agreed with Jeff's point: "They're called SSRIs, and that is one of the things that we have been talking about when it comes to not just the shootings by people with gender dysphoria, but we can go back to Highland Park, Illinois, we can go to so many different... really back to Columbine."

She expanded on the concern: "When you give them to people who have other additional issues and you give them to people who are also on puberty blockers and things like that, RFK Jr. has been talking about this as part of the MAHA movement—that we need to have a better understanding of how SSRI drugs interact with some of these other puberty blockers and also other psychotropic drugs."

Parental Responsibility and Societal Response

Smith emphasized the role of parents in the tragedy: "The shooter's parents, his parents took him to court when he was 17, Kathleen, when he was a minor, to allow him to legally change his gender."

"They couldn't wait a year? Like they couldn't wait till he was an adult? They had to do it right then?" Winn responded.

Smith questioned the quality of mental health support provided: "Did they get him good quality counseling, or did they take him to a counselor who would only affirm his gender dysphoria?"

She also noted the shooter had amassed approximately $8,000-$10,000 worth of firearms, ammunition, and equipment. "If he lived at home, which I'm suspecting he did because he talks in some of his social media postings about not working, where were the parents?"

Smith compared this to the Nashville Covenant School shooter who also wrote disturbing content and amassed weapons while parents avoided entering her room out of respect for privacy. "That privacy allowed her to amass these weapons."

Policy and Political Implications

The Minneapolis shooting highlighted significant policy questions around several issues. Winn noted that one congressional candidate had described gender transition surgery and drugs as "life-saving care," a perspective she found "terrifying."

Smith urged action at the local level: "What can we do as parents and grandparents? You know what you can do? You can stand up at school board meetings and you can say no. Not in my school is my eight-year-old granddaughter gonna share a bathroom with an eight-year-old boy whose parents are telling him that he's a girl."

"We need to stand up, we need to get involved, we need to go to school board meetings here because it's not just TUSD that's the problem. We have woke school board members in Marana, in Oro Valley, in Sahuarita, in Vail and beyond."

Guest Lori Moore's Perspective

Later in the program, Winn was joined by Lori Moore, a former school teacher. Moore expressed frustration about how gender dysphoria is treated in society.

"Why have we elevated a psychiatric disorder to such a status? It's a mental illness. It's in the psychiatric DSM-5 book, and it used to be very rare," Moore said. "If a child is a known pyromaniac, would you give them a book of matches to make them feel better? That's what they're doing with this transgender issue."

Moore was particularly concerned about the medical interventions being promoted: "They disguise it like they want to help these boys, but what they really want to do is castrate them. And you have to be on these hormones the rest of your life if you live long enough, if you don't take yourself out first because there's a high suicide rate with these treatments."

School Safety and Uniforms

Moore suggested that school uniforms could help create a more focused learning environment: "For the children, focus on the children, the kindergarteners, the first graders and second graders all the way up... there is a lot to be said for uniforms. It levels the playing field."

"Children are there to learn, children are there to make friends and have fun. It levels the playing field. Nobody gets to be any kind of freaky clothes that the tension getting. It's all very neutral. You're there to learn. That's your job. You're a professional student there to learn."

Moore added: "A school should be a place of business, and I think that when you go to a place of business, you should look like you're ready to work hard."

The Broader Impact on Communities

Beyond the immediate tragedy of lost lives, shootings like the one in Minneapolis have profound effects on entire communities. The Annunciation Catholic Church school has approximately 350 students, all of whom will carry the trauma of this event.

"This didn't just happen to two children yesterday," Winn noted. "This happened to a community, and these families."

Moore highlighted how the spiritual dimension of wellbeing is often neglected: "Human beings are a mind, a soul, and a body... People have maybe lost it with a generation of kids or even adults that just don't take care of the spiritual side of their lives, and that is where you draw all your strength from... We have to exercise the soul because it's starving, and it's not gonna get fixed with all these pills and operations and weird funky stuff that we're throwing out there to kids."

Moving Forward: Make America Healthy Again

The conversation concluded with a discussion of RFK Jr.'s "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) initiative, which seeks to address chronic disease and promote health through public policy reform.

Winn explained: "RFK is committed to empowering Americans to seize a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reverse the chronic disease epidemic, and he wants to make the United States the healthiest nation on earth."

The initiative addresses concerns about food quality, pharmaceutical influence on drug approval processes, and environmental factors affecting health. Winn noted that "pharmaceutical companies fund nearly 75% of our drug approval" processes, creating a potential conflict of interest.

Moore agreed with the importance of nutrition: "If you really cook, you're supposed to be eating the safest way to eat is right from the ground. It's not processed, it's from the ground."

Winn concluded by expressing her wish for "the U.S. food system to be clean, healthy, and transparent nutrition for all families," connecting the broader health conversation to the shooting discussion through the common thread of looking beyond surface-level solutions to address root causes of societal problems.