The mother of Robin Westman, the 23-year-old gunman who killed two children and injured 17 others before taking his own life, is refusing to cooperate with police and has retained a criminal defense attorney, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said.
Mary Grace Westman, who previously worked at Annunciation Catholic School, has not contacted investigators and has declined to respond to their outreach, the department announced Thursday evening. “We have not been successful in talking to the shooter’s mother,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told reporters on Thursday.
O’Hara gave no further details but said four search warrants executed over the past 36 hours produced hundreds of pieces of evidence and several electronic devices. Fox News reported that Mary Grace Westman has retained criminal defense attorney Ryan Garry.
“She is completely distraught about the situation and has no culpability but is seeking an attorney to deal with calls like this,” Garry told the outlet.
According to the New York Post, Garry has represented high-profile clients, including former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick in a lawsuit involving Black Lives Matter protesters, rapper Desiigner in a 2023 indecent exposure case on an aircraft, and a decorated state trooper acquitted of a wrongful sex crime charge.
Mary Grace, a former secretary at Annunciation who retired in 2021, signed off in 2020 on her son’s legal name change from Robert to Robin, noting in court filings that he identified as female.
Westman wrote that he was “tired of being trans” and expressed regret over the decision at multiple points in his disturbing manifesto, which was uploaded online in the hours leading up to the attack. “I only keep [the long hair] because it is pretty much my last shred of being trans. I’m tired of being trans, I wish I never brain-washed myself,” he wrote, according to a translation.
