Two children, aged eight and 10, have reportedly been killed and at least 17 injured following a school shooting in Minneapolis, US, police say.
The attack happened at the Annunciation Catholic School during morning Mass for the children’s first week of school. Fourteen of the injured are children, the police have informed.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said a gunman, who was armed with a rifle, shotgun and pistol, shot “dozens of rounds” through the church window before turning the gun on himself.
The police believe he was in his mid-20s and acted alone.
"We believe he is deceased," O’Hara said about the gunman, and added that he did not have an "extensive known criminal history".
Also Read: 5 dead, including shooter, in US school shooting tragedy
While a vehicle, believed to be the suspect's, has been found in the church car park and is being searched, the police also found what it described to be a "smoke bomb, like not an explosive, but a sort of a firework" that would generate smoke.
O’Hara called it a "deliberate act of violence against children and worshippers".
"Our hearts are broken for the families who have lost their children", for the young lives "fighting to recover" and for "the entire community that has been so deeply traumatised by this senseless attack", the police chief said.
Thomas Wyatt, Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Hennepin Healthcare, said seven critical patients – all aged between 6 and 14 years of age – were brought in and four needed surgery.
"There are no words that can capture the horror," said Mayor, Jacob Frey.
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