(NewsNation) — A former friend says she noticed red flags in the Minneapolis school shooter’s behavior as far back as seventh grade, when the shooter did Nazi salutes in class and “verbally abused” friends.
Josefina Sanchez said she was friendly with Robin Westman, who killed two children and injured 18 other people Wednesday, when the two of them attended St. Agnes School in St. Paul, Minnesota.
“He was very erratic. Red flags all around but I didn’t know, because I was just in the seventh grade,” Sanchez said of her former classmate who attacked children and adults as they prayed at a Mass at Annunciation Catholic School.
“He would [Nazi] salute. He would write code and was very verbally abusive, like towards me, and his closest guy friends. Very verbally abuse.”
No signs of gender dysmorphia: friend of shooter
Westman was not bullied and fit in with the rest of his cohort in the seventh grade, according to Sanchez. She does not remember him as someone who got into trouble.
“I wouldn’t say like the most friendliest [sic], but he had a good side to him, and would talk to other people. So I don’t know where it could’ve come from,” she said.
Federal officials identified the shooter as transgender and court documents show the shooter changed their name from Robert to Robin at 17 years old.
Sanchez said she “never” saw any signs that Westman was struggling with accepting his gender at any point, and that it was traumatizing to realize she knew the shooter.
Shooter had ‘heart full of hate’
Westman died by suicide after opening fire on the church full of students. Investigators described the shooter as having a “deranged fascination” with previous school shooters and watching children suffer.
The shooter’s writings also described hatred toward other groups, and Joseph Thompson, the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, said the hate targeted “almost every group imaginable.”
“In short, the shooter appeared to hate all of us. The shooter’s heart was full of hate,” Thompson said.
“There appears to be only one group that the shooter didn’t hate, one group of people who the shooter admired. That group were the school shooters and mass murderers that are notorious in this country.”
Investigators are examining hundreds of pieces of evidence to determine why the gunman targeted Annunciation Catholic School.
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Author: Patrick Djordjevic
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