Ammon News - An assailant armed with three guns fired through stained-glass windows into a Catholic church where parish school students were attending Mass on Wednesday, killing two children and wounding 17 other people, officials said.

The shooting ended when the lone suspect, identified as Robin Westman, 23, "took his own life" at the rear of the church, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara, who declined to offer a possible motive for the attack.

A videotaped message by the suspect showed Westman struggled with depression and was fascinated by the perpetrators of past mass shootings.

FBI Director Kash Patel said his agency was investigating the attack as an "act of domestic terrorism and hate crime targeting Catholics."

Two victims, aged 8 and 10, were slain where they sat as the gunfire turned the morning Mass into pandemonium. It sent worshipers diving behind pews for cover while older children scrambled to shield younger ones, officials said. At least two of the church exits were blocked by wooden planks barricaded outside the doors, O'Hara said.

In addition to the two children killed, 17 other people were struck by gunfire - 14 of them students ages 6 to 18 and three parishioners in their 80s, O'Hara said. All the injured were expected to recover, according to the chief.

Reuters