Middle schoolers are lauded for protecting younger kids during church shooting

Middle schoolers are lauded for protecting younger kids during church shooting

Bill Chappell

Liz Baker

August 28, 2025 / 3:40 pm

When gunfire shattered a routine Mass marking the first week of class at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, middle school students were among those who acted heroically, according to an emergency official, a principal and a parent whose children attend the school.

As a lone shooter carried out a mass shooting that killed two children and injured 15 other children and three adults, children were protecting other children.

"We had one kid that covered up another kid and took a shotgun blast to his back," Marty Scheerer, chief of Hennepin Emergency Medical Services, said on Thursday.

The students had been among the pews at Annunciation Church on