MINNEAPOLIS — Mason Carter started fixing the mortar between the bricks of his client’s house early Wednesday morning. It seemed like it would be a good day to work outside, with warm weather and reasonable humidity—a rare August combination in Minnesota.
Then he heard gunshots. “Sounded like it was next door,” he told me. A woman walking by at that moment locked eyes with him, and they ran away from the direction of the shooting. Eerie silence followed, then the wailing of sirens. Carter, 39, said that part of him thought whatever happened had ended. He decided to get back to work on the house.
He couldn’t fathom that a shooter armed with a rifle, shotgun, and pistol had just fired through the windows of Annunciation Catholic School during a Mass to celebrate the start of the school year, killing two children—aged 8 and 10—and injuring 17 other people.
Authorities said the shooter barricaded doors from the outside and started firing as Mass began. Some people were still finding their seats. The churchgoers included more than students and school staff; among those injured as bullets strafed the sanctuary were three people in their 80s, police said.
