From nypost.com
Minneapolis school shooter Robin Westman used to horrify classmates by walking around saying “praise Hitler,” according to a former friend who denounced him as “demonic.”
Josefina Sanchez said she is still tormented by how “erratic” and “off” Westman was when they were briefly friends in seventh grade at a school in St. Paul.
Even when that young, the soon-to-be trans killer showed signs of the hateful antisemitism that would later see him fantasizing about attacking “filthy Zionist jews.”
“He would put up his hand and say, like, ‘praise Hitler,’” Sanchez told local outlet KTSP, fighting back tears at the thought she could have raised the alarm and prevented Wednesday’s mass shooting.
“Something I knew was off, but I was a kid. How would I know, like, what to do in the seventh grade?” she asked. “When you see something erratic, it doesn’t leave your mind.”
Sanchez said that Westman was known to write in code so that nobody could understand his writing — similar to the mix of Cryllic seen in his twisted manifesto and troubled writings he shared on YouTube before the massacre.
“It’s demonic, I’m sorry, it is,” she said of her one-time friend’s behaviour.
“It was just kind of triggering,” Sanchez said, becoming overwhelmed with emotion. “I wish I could have said something sooner, but I was little, how was I supposed to know?”
Westman’s unhinged, hate-fueled writings called for the death of President Trump, glorified violence and mass shootings and expressed explicit antisemitism and racism.
In one antisemitic entry in Westman’s notebook seen in his video, the mass murderer scrawled, “If I carry out a racially motivated attack, it would be most likely against filthy Zionist jews.”
Westman also called Jewish people “entitled” and “penny-sniffing” before adding “FREE PALESTINE!”
The deranged gunman opened fire on the Annunciation Catholic Church and School Wednesday morning armed with a rifle, shotgun and handgun — killing two kids and wounding 17 others, according to police.
Westman died at the scene of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was not previously known to law enforcement, Minneapolis Police said.
He had attended the school he attacked for a year as a child, and his mother worked there as a secretary for five years before she retired in 2021.
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