MINNEAPOLIS — Robin Westman brimmed with hatred.

In raving videos and coded manifestos, the 23-year-old unleashed torrents of rage toward Jews, Christians, Mexicans and Black people alike.

But authorities say Westman obsessed over punishing one group above all others.

“The shooter wanted to kill children — defenseless children,” said Joe Thompson, Minnesota’s acting U.S. attorney. “I won’t dignify the shooter’s words by repeating them. They are horrific and vile. But, in short, the shooter wanted to watch children suffer.”

The death and injury toll from Westman opening fire into a back-to-school mass in Minneapolis’ Annunciation Catholic School is now up to 20, said Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who provided an update on the investigation with Thompson and other state and federal law enforcement leaders on Thursday. That includes two children — identified as Fletcher Merkel, 8, and Harper Moyski, 10 — who died at the scene from gunshot wounds to the head. Fifteen more, ages 6 to 15, were injured, plus three parishioners in their 80s. All of those injured are expected to survive, hospital officials said Thursday.

O’Hara said officers have recovered 116 rifle rounds from the church, along with three shotgun shells and a handgun that appears to have jammed during the attack. Westman died from a self-inflicted gunshot.

The group of city, state and federal law enforcement officials who are orchestrating the investigation said they were still poring through the journals, interviewing family members, executing search warrants and reviewing surveillance footage, but they had yet to find any clear answers as to what motivated Westman to carry out Wednesday’s attack. Nor have they found any red flags that could have warned authorities that an attack was imminent. They said the shooter did not have any serious criminal history or record of civil commitment for dangerous mental illness. Westman bought the guns legally and did not appear on any FBI watchlists for dangerous people, they said.

“The reality is, this is an unthinkable, completely senseless act,” said O’Hara. “Violence perpetrated against children worshiping at mass. No investigation — no evidence — will ever be able to make sense of such an unthinkable tragedy. That being said, we will do our best to determine and identify a specific motive.”

Investigators have conducted searches of for homes and seized electronic devices and other evidence, and have interviewed Westman’s father, authorities said. They have not yet been able to interview the mother, they said.

Westman did appear to admire one group of people: mass murderers.

In journal entries written in the Cyrillic text, Westman praised shooters of Parkland, Columbine and others, expressing a fascination with school shootings that went back to seventh grade.

While the motive is unclear, O’Hara said Westman fits into a pattern of killers who seek maximum carnage in order to obtain notoriety. For this reason, O’Hara said he’s refused to utter Westman’s name since first identifying the shooter publicly.

In an interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune, the chief said authorities are still searching for any event that may have led the shooter to target Annunciation — one of several schools in which Westman attended years ago, and where Westman’s mother worked.

O’Hara said the death toll could have been higher if the church had not been locked, a routine practice when mass begins. The shooter intended to barricade the doors to the church, O’Hara said, but couldn’t enter the building and instead fired through the windows.

“What’s particularly heinous and cowardly about this is these children were slaughtered by a shooter who could not see them,” O’Hara said.

In interviews with the Star Tribune, survivors described the chaos that erupted after the shooting started.

When they first heard the popping sounds of the bullets, around 8:30 a.m., several said they thought it was fireworks or some kind of prank.

“Then the screams told you it wasn’t,” said one survivor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

One of the shots grazed 10-year-old Astoria Safe across the forehead, lodging bullet fragments in the top of her head that doctors have deemed too dangerous to remove. Astoria said she helped pull two other kids down next to her when the bullets started flying.

“I had two buddies side by side, and I just pushed their heads down to make sure they were safe,” she said. “It was just crazy. And the smell was terrible.”

Vivian St. Clair, 9, was among those injured, according an online fundraising campaign started on behalf of her family. With a gunshot wound, she “ran from the church to the school gym, where a police officer scooped her up and rushed her to an ambulance.”

Libby Passa, 10, estimated the shots lasted for about 20 seconds. Teachers told the children to cover their heads, even after the shooting stopped and silence filled the church. When the shooting ended, a music teacher started singing to keep them calm.

O’Hara said police started receiving calls about the shooting at 8:27 a.m. and the first officer arrived on the scene at 8:31 a.m. He said the officer rushed into the church in regular uniform, with no helmet or other SWAT gear. Someone directed the officer to where the shooter had been moments earlier.

“A parishioner later told me that was the first time that he, the children and others there had any sense they might be safe and survive,” O’Hara said.

On Thursday evening, every pew in the Basilica of St. Mary was filled as community members of all faiths gathered for a service to pray for the families of Annunciation. Some knelt before sitting, tracing the sign of the cross across their bodies in a quiet Catholic ritual.

At the bottom steps of the Basilica stood two wooden crosses with hearts, one for each child killed at Annunciation Church on Wednesday.

Handwritten messages of support cover the crosses. “Fly high,” someone wrote on the 8-year-old’s cross. “You are loved,” someone wrote on the other. “We will miss you” was written on both.

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(Paul Walsh, Louis Krauss, Sofia Barnett, Elliot Hughes and Eva Herscowitz of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this report.)

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