A sudden mass assault and a terrorist attack are both subsumed under the category of performative violence, but they are not the same crime and conflating them jeopardizes prevention efforts by obfuscating a thorough appreciation of the myriad forces underlying extreme violence. Yet, Kash Patel, the current director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in an early tweet on the recent shooting at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minnesota displayed confusion about the distinction between those types of violent episodes. As such his announcement hampers understanding by the lay public and, concomitantly, the development of responsive public policy.
Patel announced, “The FBI is investigating this shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and hate crime targeting Catholics.”[1] The trouble is the act does not match the definition of “domestic terrorism” under the National Defense Authorization Act. Moreover, Catholicism, as an institution, was probably not the target.
Even a cursory review of the written apologia by the attacker and the videos left behind[2] shows that s/he lacked the prerequisite intent to “[i]nfluence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion; or [a]ffect the conduct of a government….”[3] On the contrary, the shooter, Robin Westman, presents the classic portrait of an alienated autogenic murderer who elected to take lives for one reason – to advertise his/her personal anguish prior to a dramatic suicidal exit.[4]
Perhaps due to inexperience, his lack of studious regard for the literature on the rampageous mindset, or a flair for exhibitionist interpretation absent factual data, or all three, Patel assumed that Westman’s chosen locale was an indication of a terrorist act. However, the location and even the religious affiliation of victims do not, in and of themselves exemplify terrorism which, by definition, necessitates an attempt to counteract, avenge, or at least protest, specificities of officialdom through cruelty and intimidation by directing harm to a selected set of people.
Westman made no demands and his/her media do not reference opposition to any designated belief system or an identifiable on-going enterprise. Instead, the writings and videos display general disenchantment and antagonism toward sundry conditions and circumstantial affronts.[5] Contrast those postings, for example, with the Unabomber’s very dedicated opposition to industrialization and technology or the festering anger of the Oklahoma City bombers toward the incidents at Ruby Ridge and Waco.[6]
Even if Westman was, in fact, selecting a religious group, prejudicial inclinations do not necessarily equate to terroristic motives. Prejudice, repulsive though it may be, does not automatically equate to terrorism. As a matter of fact, in an analysis of 112 autogenic murderers, 61 – over half –expressed some type of bigotry.[7] Likewise the chosen setting for the killer’s final performance – a Catholic school – does not validate an assumption of orchestrated terror. Westman was a former student and, poignantly, educational institutions are vulnerable targets. Three distinct studies have shown that accessibility, familiarity, and the perception of probable dominance are the factors most prominently considered by rampage attackers when selecting the setting for mayhem.[8]
This protestation is not simply terminological hairsplitting. On the contrary, there are at least four ways in which Patel’s haphazard representation is more harmful than beneficial.
- It obscures socio-psychological considerations in favor of civil interventions by implying that penetrative law enforcement can curtail future assaults through aggressive obstruction. The implication is that there is an enemy or group that needs to be corralled through a dedicated use of force, rather than acknowledging that there is a psycho-emotional malady within elements of the common citizenry that must be addressed and minimized. The shooter was not a spearhead of a movement. The urgency, as signaled by this incident, is not to stop some nefarious catalogue of perpetrators but to have sufficient training throughout communities so that malicious preoccupations among individuals are recognized before potential actors take deadly action. Resources for that task needs to be distributed, not only to law enforcement, but to teachers, social workers, human resource professionals, psychologists, and health practitioners.
- Labeling a psychotic person, barely into his twenties, as a “domestic terrorist” leads to marshaling antagonism toward whatever group the public at large (or the administration) chooses to vilify.[9] It borders on stochastic dog whistling, wherein certain resonant phrases dehumanizes portions of the population. Already, because Westman was, apparently, a man who identified as a woman, internet trolls are referring to “trans-terrorism” as a rising phenomenon that needs to be forcibly combated.[10] (There is absolutely no proof, statistical or anecdotal, that sexual preference or gender identification, as isolated factors, fuel homicidal tendencies on a mass scale. Although, by the way, there is evidence that masculine hegemony is a cognitive contributor to violence.)[11]
- As an adjunct to the first and second points, the identification of terrorism as a motivator deflects the focus from the need for improved education and increased behavioral supports to a crisis call for “law and order,” the tired refrain of the current President and his followers. Interventions for mass violence are best advanced through identifying and rectifying antagonism latent in persons in local communities by supplying accessible services that can be deployed prior to an event. However, the current administration and the slavish Republican legislature have deliberately hindered such efforts. “[J]ust months after Trump returned to the presidency this year, his administration paused new rules issued in President Joe Biden’s final months that were designed to strengthen mental health protections and hold insurance companies accountable when they unlawfully denied coverage. … What’s more, Congress has curtailed funding for the Employee Benefits Security Administration, or EBSA, a small agency in the Department of Labor that enforces mental health parity in most employer-sponsored health insurance plans”.[12] The curtailment parallels the Trump administration’s decision to discontinue $1 billion in grants that supported school-based counseling programs.[13] Augmenting that sabotage are massive reductions in funding for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that will result in severe restrictions or even elimination of critical care, certified community behavioral health clinics, and agencies supporting children and families.[14] And let’s not forget the termination of the 988 Suicide & Crisis LGBTQ+ Youth Specialized Services program, a literal lifeline that might have prevented the very tragedy that Patel is so eager to treat as a type of treason.[15]
- Finally, there is the need for officials to maintain diagnostic etiquette. The responsibility is essential because it upholds an analytical approach for assessing causes of violence and, by extension, preventing, or at least reducing, future tragedies. Among rampage assailants, certain antecedents in conditions and circumstances have been identified, specifically: perceived physical inadequacy, oppressive/destructive environmental situations; neuropsychological impairments; a pathological personality.[16] That identification can contribute to mitigation, especially when it is verified in a particular situation. As indicated in the first point in this list, the categorization of an act as political (absent justification as such) minimizes the role of social-psychological dynamics and thereby inhibits the development of preventative social constructs that might be built upon judicious research into the inclinations of killers.
It is worthy of note that the man who appointed Patel as FBI Director issued full pardons or commuted the sentences of all the rioters (numbering approximately 1500) who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, many of whom had criminal records, and whose actions were perfectly congruent with the legal definition of domestic terrorism in that they were engaged in aggression for the sole purpose of disrupting a congressional proceeding.[17] A component of that criminal cohort was a number of Proud Boys, the very group that Trump exhorted to “Stand back and stand by” when asked to denounce white supremacist movements in his debate with Joe Biden while running for his second consecutive term.[18] It is also notable that Patel, since his appointment on February 21, 2025, contrary to the advice of his predecessor, expert testimony, and a congressional report, has done nothing to investigate jingoistic and racist-sexist groups who espouse forcible revocation of democratic norms and protected civil liberties, which, again, classically conform with plausible terroristic intentions on the homeland.[19] Meanwhile, not too surprisingly when considered in relation to the President’s exoneration of the insurrectionists and the homo-trans-phobia that has characterized much of Trump’s policy-making in his second term[20] “[t]he Proud Boys … have been involved in nearly 70 anti-LGBTQ incidents since June 2022… . These include 50+ protests mainly targeting drag shows and local school boards — and resulting in at least four violent altercations.”[21]
Apparently, rather than articulating the need for careful criminological investigation along with sociological evaluation, it is much easier, more dramatic, and in line with the sentiments of Patel and his Boss to create panic around a deeply disturbed young person who, though culpable of a horrendous act, poses no real threat (beyond potential mediatized influence) because he is now dead by his own hand.
[1] FBI Director Kash Patel@FBIDirectorKash, X, posted August 27, 2025.
[2] Joe Marino, Diana Nerozzi, and Chris Nesi, “Minneapolis School Shooter ID’d as Trans Woman Robin Westman — As Apparent Manifesto Included ‘Kill Trump,’” New York Post, posted and updated August 27, 2025, https:// nypost.com/2025/08/27/us-news/minneapolis-catholic-school-gunman-idd-as-robin-westman-while-possible-manifesto-shows-psychotic-obsession-with-mass-shooters/; Ryan Raiche, reporter, in 5 Night Cast, “Breaking News: Mass Shooting at Minneapolis Church, Suspect Identified as 23-Year-Old Robin Westman,” embedded in KSTP Staff, “Robin Westman Posted a Manifesto on YouTube Prior To Annunciation Church Shooting,” posted and updated August 27, 2025, https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/robin-westman-posted-a-manifesto-on-youtube-prior-to-annunciation-church-shooting/; Robin M. Westman, “To My Friends and Family, embedded in KSTP Staff, “Robin Westman Posted.”
[3] National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, Pub. L. no. 116-92, under “Definitions.”
[4] Kathianne Boniello, “Robin Westman’s Teacher Reported Shooter’s Signs of Self-Harm Years before Minneapolis Church Killings,” New York Post, posted August 30, 2025, https://nypost.com/2025/08/30/us-news/robin-westmans-teacher-reported-shooters-signs-of-self-harm-years-before-minnesota-church-killings/; Rebecca Cohen, Marlene Lenthang and Doha Madani, “What We Know about The Suspect in the Minneapolis Catholic School Shooting,” NBC News, posted August 27, 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/minneapolis-catholic-school-shooting-rcna227591.
[5] David Brennan and Emily Shapiro, “Minneapolis Shooter ‘Expressed Hate Towards Almost Every Group Imaginable,’” American Broadcasting Company (ABC) News, posted August 28, 2025, https://abcnews.go.com /US/multiple-minneapolis-shooting-victims-released-hospital-police-chief/story?id=125049583.
[6] Alston Chase, “Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber,” Atlantic, posted June 2000, https://www.theatlantic .com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard-and-the-making-of-the-unabomber/378239/; Ted Kaczynski, “Industrial Society and Its Future,” Washington Post Special Report, originally published September 22, 1995, https://www .washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm; Douglas O. Linder, “The Oklahoma Bombing Conspirators,” Famous Trials, s.v. “Okla City Bombing Trial (1997),” https://famous-trials.com/; Letters by Timothy McVeigh, in Tracy McVeigh, “The McVeigh letters: Why I Bombed Oklahoma,” Guardian, posted May 6, 2001, https://www. theguardian.com/world/2001/may/06/mcveigh.usa.
[7] S. Lee Funk, How Rampage Killers Interpret Their Worlds (Washington D.C: Academica Press, 2024), 105-111, Appendix A.
[8] J. Pete Blair and Katherine W. Schweit, A Study of Active Shooter Incidents, 2000-2013 (Washington D.C: Texas State University and U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2014), 5, 13; Paul Gill, James Silver, John Horgan, and Emily Corner, “Shooting Alone: The Pre-Attack Experiences and Behaviors of U.S. Solo Mass Murderers,” Journal of Forensic Sciences 62, no. 3 (May 2017): 710, 713, doi: 10.1111/15 56-4029.13330;
Michael Knox, “Crime Scene Behaviors of Rampage School Shooters: Developing Strategies for Planning Response, and Investigation of Multiple-Victim Shooting Incidents on School Campuses,” (Ph.D. diss., Nova Southeastern University, 2018), 104, 136, https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cahss_jhs_etd/9/.
[9] Megan Forrester, “What We Know about Minnesota School Shooting Suspect Robin Westman,” ABC News, posted August 29, 2025, https://abcnews.go.com/US/minnesota-school-shooting-suspect-robin-westman /story?id=125029777.
[10] Piotr Smolar, “After Minneapolis Shooting, Trump’s Supporters Charge ‘Trans-Terrorism,’” Le Monde, posted August 28, 2025, https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/08/28/after-minneapolis-shooting-trump-s-supporters-charge-trans-terrorism_6744797_4.html#.
[11] S. Lee Funk, Why Rampage Killers Emerge: Conditions and Characteristics (Washington D.C: Academica Press, 2024), 17-21, 63-66.
[12] Maya Miller and Jeremy Kohler, “Trump’s Rollback of Rules for Mental Health Coverage Could Lead More Americans to Go Without Care,” ProPublica, posted August 18, 2025, https://newrepublic.com/article/199682 /graham-platner-maine-senate-profile?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tnr_daily.
[13] For more on this topic refer to: Collin Binkley, “Trump Administration Cuts $1 Billion in School Mental Health Grants, Citing Conflict of Priorities,” Associated Press (AP), posted April 30, 2025, https://apnews.com/article /school-mental-health-grants-trump-biden-dei-00bec2d96371f023ac56fe3f32f3e92f; Natalie Eilbert, “As Part of $1 Billion in School Mental Health Cuts, Wisconsin Loses Roughly $8 Million,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, posted May 2, 2025, https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/health/2025/05/02/trump-cuts-funds-for-mental-health-professionals-in-wisconsin-schools/83407768007/; Brooke Schultz, “Trump Ends $1 Billion in Mental Health Grants for Schools,” Education Week, posted April 30, 2025, https:// www.edweek.org/policy-politics/trump-ends-1-billion-in-mental-health-grants-for-schools/2025/04; TYT(The Young Turks), “Republican Hypocrisy is Overwhelming,” YouTube, posted [May 3, 2025?], https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks/shorts.
[14] Paolo del Vecchio, “Trump’s Mental Health and Addiction Problem,” STAT, posted April 21, 2025, https://www .statnews.com/2025/04/21/samhsa-elimination-trump-kennedy-rfk-jr-substance-abuse-mental-health-aha/.
[15] Trevor News, “Closed: Trump Admin Officially Shuts Down the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ Youth Specialized Services,” Trevor Project, posted July 17, 2025, https://www.thetrevorproject.org/blog/closed-trump-admin-officially-shuts-down-the-988-suicide-crisis-lifelines-lgbtq-youth-specialized-services/.
[16] Funk, Why Rampage Killers Emerge, 21-23, 221-239, Appendix.
[17] Tom Dreisbach, “Criminal Records of Jan. 6 Rioters Pardoned by Trump Include Rape, Domestic Violence,” National Public Radio (NPR), originally broadcast on January 30, 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/01/30/nx-s1-5276336/donald-trump-jan-6-rape-assault-pardons-rioters; Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), “New FBI Director Kash Patel Takes Oath of Office,” FBI News, posted February 25, 2025, https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories /new-fbi-director-takes-oath-of-office;
Carrie Johnson, “Trump Offers Long-Promised Pardons to Some 1,500 January 6 Rioters,” NPR, updated January 20, 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/01/20/g-s1-36809/trump-pardons-january-6-riot; A Proclamation by The President of the United States Of America, “Granting Pardons and Commutation of Sentences for Certain Offenses Relating to the Events at or Near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,” January 20, 2025, https://www .whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/granting-pardons-and-commutation-of-sentences-for-certain-offenses-relating-to-the-events-at-or-near-the-united-states-capitol-on-january-6-2021/
[18] AP, “Trump Tells Proud Boys: ‘Stand Back and Stand By,’” posted [September 29, 2020?], https://www.youtube .com/watch?v=qIHhB1ZMV_o; Max Matza, British Broadcast Corporation (BBC), “Proud Boys and Oath Keepers Among Over 1,500 Capitol Riot Defendants Pardoned by Trump,” posted January 20, 2025, https://www.bbc.com /news/articles/c5y7l47xrpko; Kathleen Ronayne and Michael Kunzelman, “Trump to Far-Right Extremists: ‘Stand Back and Stand By,’” AP, posted September 30, 2020, https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-race-and-ethnicity-donald-trump-chris-wallace-0b32339da25fbc9e8b7c7c7066a1db0f.
[19] Mike German and Faiza Patel, “Justice Department Must Reveal the Real Scope of Domestic Terrorism,” Brennan Center for Justice, posted January 25, 0224, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/justice-department-must-reveal-real-scope-domestic-terrorism; Seth G. Jones, Senior Vice President, Harold Brown, Chair and Director, International Security Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies, “Violent Domestic Extremist Groups and the Recruitment of Veterans,” Statement before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, October 13, 2021, https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/113968/witnesses/HHRG-117-VR00-Wstate-JonesS-20211013.pdf; Michael C. McGarrity, Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division, FBI, “Confronting the Rise of Domestic Terrorism in the Homeland,” Statement Before the House Homeland Security Committee, Washington, D.C., May 8, 2019, https://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches-and-testimony/confronting-the-rise-of-domestic-terrorism-in-the-homeland; United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, The Rising Threat of Domestic Terrorism: A Review of the Federal Response to Domestic Terrorism and the Spread of Extremist Content on Social Media, A HSGAC Majority Staff Report, November 2022, https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/imo/media/doc/221116 _HSGACMajorityReport_DomesticTerrorism&SocialMedia.pdf.
[20] Lindsey Dawson and Jennifer Kates, “Overview of President Trump’s Executive Actions Impacting LGBTQ+ Health,” KFF (formerly Kaiser Family Foundation), posted August 15, 2025, https://www.kff.org/other-health/overview-of-president-trumps-executive-actions-impacting-lgbtq-health/.
[21] GLAAD (formerly Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), “Fact Sheet for Reporters: Trump’s Pardon of Jan 6th Insurrectionists,” posted January 29, 2025, https://glaad.org/fact-sheet-for-reporters-trumps-pardon-of-jan-6th-insurrectionists/.