Annunciation mass shooting investigation detailed in 2,600-page report

Law enforcement has released an extensive report on the response and investigation into last year's deadly attack at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis.

The mass shooting, which occurred during the first Mass of the school year on Aug. 27, 2025, killed 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski. Eighteen other children, ranging in age from 6 to 15, were hurt, as well as three adults. The shooting happened at the church, which is connected to a school building.

The report is about 2,600 pages long, including hundreds of pages of photographic evidence connected to the attack, providing the clearest picture yet of the response and the investigation that followed. Dispatch records show the first officer arrived on scene roughly three and a half minutes after the initial report of a possible shooting — by which point the shooter was already down from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In all, dozens of officers from Minneapolis and about a half-dozen other state, federal and neighboring local agencies responded.

The report is broken into two: the first stemming from Minneapolis Police Department's investigation, and the second mostly coming from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension along with other local departments that responded.

The Minneapolis police report outlines the response of more than 150 first responders, detailing their movements and actions throughout the day, including locating the 23-year-old shooter, treating victims and clearing rooms inside the church. The shooter had come armed with a rifle, shotgun and pistol — all purchased legally, according to police — along with knives, smoke bombs and multiple rounds of ammunition. Investigators recovered shell casings and dozens of bullet fragments scattered around the church and the neighboring playground, some as far away as the walls and gutters of houses in the surrounding neighborhood.

The first officers into the sanctuary described a scene of victims lying across the pews, extensive bloodshed, broken glass and the smell of gunpowder still in the air. One officer's report noted upfront that he hadn't reviewed his body camera footage from the call and didn't intend to. Officers worked to triage as many victims as they could on scene, including holding pressure on wounds and applying a tourniquet to an adult who'd been shot in the leg in the parking lot and was losing blood quickly; hospital staff later told the officer who rode with her that his actions likely saved her life.

Survivors described the chaos of a Mass suddenly interrupted — hearing gunfire and shattering windows, with at least one person recalling holding the inner doors shut as the shooter rattled the doors outside. Many children said they ducked under pews or followed adults to hiding spots elsewhere in the church, while preschool teachers described barricading classrooms and trying to keep kids calm. Outside, officers described parents frantically searching for children and spouses who worked at the school, including one woman whose husband had grabbed their child and hidden near an ice machine in the church basement.

The police report also lists each witness, victim, neighbor and parent police interviewed following the deadly shooting. It also includes 10 crime lab reports. In all, just this first report is 816 pages long.

The second report lays out responses from outside agencies, including an off-duty Dakota County Drug Task Force Officer who came to help on scene and a Bloomington officer's response report.

It also includes a report from the BCA and a synopsis of 15 interviews they conducted as part of their investigation, including interviews with the shooter's dad, a former partner, St. Louis Park library staff, a former employee of the city of Richfield, a family friend and more.

According to the report, the shooter's father "had no concerns" about the shooter's "behavior leading up to the shooting," but added his ex-wife, the shooter's mother, did have concerns about their interest in airsoft guns. He also told investigators he hadn't noticed anything else alarming beforehand, aside from the shooter struggling to eat and losing significant weight. Several relatives reportedly declined to speak with investigators at all.

In another interview, the shooter's ex-girlfriend described them as "a friendly person" who "would never harm anyone." She said in recent months they had been "distant" but it wasn't concerning behavior. Multiple people close to the shooter — including the ex-girlfriend, a close friend and former co-workers — described them as somewhat of a loner prone to depression, echoing accounts from a former teacher who said she'd previously flagged self-harm concerns. While the shooter had voiced suicidal thoughts years earlier, none of the people interviewed said they saw warning signs that the shooter was capable of hurting others.

Investigators had previously said the shooter was full of hatred and appeared to admire past mass shooters, writing their names on the weapons, gear and ammunition used in the attack alongside a jumbled series of statements targeting religion, race and ethnicity that offered little clarity on motive or target selection. A search warrant included in the documents also references a dashcam in the car the shooter drove to the church that morning and in the days leading up to the attack; officers who reviewed the footage said the shooter appeared agitated after a visit with family and was seen sobbing at times before driving past the church and school the night before the shooting.

The shooter, a former Annunciation student, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after firing nearly 120 rounds into the church's windows.

City officials have indicated additional documents or video from the case could be released in the coming weeks. Much of what's been released so far has been redacted to protect victims' privacy, and no photos or video from inside the church were included in this release.