'School shooter killed my classmates - we thought gunshots were fireworks'

Horrifying news that two young children have died and 17 more were injured in a mass shooting at a catholic school in Minneapolis shocked the world yesterday.

The man responsible for the mass shooting - Robin Westman, 23 - has been identified as the suspect in the horrific tragedy where he also died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His mum, Mary Grace Westman, worked at the school where the shooting occurred.

Of the 17 injured in the mass shooting at Annunciation Church, 14 were children and three were adults aged in their 80s. Mayor Jacob Frey said the tragedy could have been even more horrific if it were not for the swift actions of heroic church staff, who moved children under pews ina desperate attempt to shield them from the gunfire.

And it has come to light that classmates tried to help and comfort each other.

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Javen Willis, a 13-year-old student at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, described the moments bullets flew by him and his classmates during the shooting.

“We had just sat back down after the psalms were read and we were just waiting for the next part of mass to continue and all I heard was pow, pow, pow,” Javen told NBC News.

“I told my two buddies ‘get down, get down, go under the pew’ and I dropped down under the pew myself and started praying.

“I saw a whole lot of people around me stressing and crying and I just thought ‘ok, I can’t think about me, I need to help these other people’ so they’re not just going through this horrible situation by themselves.”

The schoolboy also said that while he knew it was gunfire and was in shock, some of his classmates thought it was confetti or fireworks.

It wasn’t until the school children were able to go outside that Javen found out some of his classmates had been hurt and two had died.

“Unfortunately I saw a body on the floor not moving and when we got outside the building my friend told me that he had been hit and had to be rushed to hospital - I think this is horrible that this had to happen on our first week of school.

“Being reunited with my family was happy and sad knowing that these kids don't get to reunite with their family and I was one of the lucky ones.

"I think it’s a miracle that I got saved because I’d just got baptised a week ago and tonight I’m just going to be praying that all my friends that got hurt and that all kids got hurt, that their surgery goes well. I also pray for families going through loss.”

While details are still emerging about what happened in the USA school shooting yesterday, FBI Director Kash Patel said the incident was being investigated "as an act of domestic terrorism and hate crime targeting Catholics".