Newly released emergency dispatch recordings are shedding light on the terrifying moments after a gunman opened fire at a Minneapolis Catholic school on Wednesday as police and first responders rushed to the scene.
The hour-long audio recording captures dispatchers, police officers and other first responders coordinating a large-scale emergency response after gunfire erupted during a morning church service.
Early in the recording, dispatchers confirmed a suspected active shooter at the school’s church, calling for “all available assistance.”
“Minneapolis has a possible active shooter,” one responder said over the radio.
The FBI confirmed that the shooting is being investigated as both a hate crime targeting Catholics and an act of domestic terrorism.
While a definitive motive has yet to be confirmed, officials say the suspect uploaded a manifesto to YouTube prior to the shooting. The video has since been removed from the platform.
O’Hara called the shooter a coward and described it as a targeted act of cruelty.
“This was a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshiping,” he said. “The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible.”
The shooting has drawn comparisons to the deadly Covenant School attack in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2023, when a gunman killed three students and three adults. Don Aaron, spokesman for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, said it’s important to focus on the victims rather than the shooter’s “twisted planning.”
“The stark reality is that mass shooters read about and study their predecessors before committing their own carnage,” he told Fox News Digital. “We know the shooter in the Covenant case did, as she planned her attack over a period of many months. She went through firearms training during that period without setting off alarms. She had no adverse contact with law enforcement prior to the day of the shooting.
“After a lengthy investigation, the shooter’s quest for notoriety was deemed to be the motive. She wanted her bedroom to be preserved and movies and books to be made about her. That is why it is so important to make the victims the focus of public statements in the days, weeks, and years after these horrible crimes. Most people, especially law enforcement, do not want to publicly focus on the shooter’s twisted planning so that it does not influence others.”
Stepheny Price covers crime including missing persons, homicides, and migrant crime. Story tips: stepheny.price@fox.com.
