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Police Chief Says, Shooter Released Manifesto on YouTube; Fed Gov. Cook Files Lawsuit Over Trump's Attempt to Fire Her; 18 Killed in Russian Strikes on Ukraine, Including 4 Children. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired August 28, 2025 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[09:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. This morning, investigators in Minneapolis are digging through the shooter's hate-filled writings and social media videos, this as many people in that community have questions this morning.

Let's get right to CNN's Brian Todd for the very latest on what you're learning. Brian?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said the suspect, Robin Westman, had no previous criminal history on record. But this morning, there are clearly some signs of bizarre and disturbing behavior exhibited. Westman appears to have left a series of online videos which describe an obsession with school shootings and named some other mass shooters, such as the 2012 Sandy Hook gunman, the Columbine shooters, and the man who attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.

And according to CNN's Chief law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller, Westman also posted one video on YouTube showing writings which contained anti-black, anti-Semitic, and anti-religious messages.

Now, as for the videos, there is one of Westman simply reading the manual for a closed dryer. That video goes on for several minutes. In another video, the suspect pages through a handwritten notebook. One video shows guns and gun magazines with various messages and racial slurs written on them. One magazine says the words, psycho killer, on it.

Now, a key question this morning, what does all of this tell us about a possible motive for the shooting? Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara spoke about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF BRIAN O'HARA, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE: You know, what we've seen so far is just a variety of hate, you know, just really deranged comments and almost like an idolizing of previous active shooters. So, right now, we don't have a clear motive to establish for why he did this at the church today. We are obviously open to every possibility. (END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: Now, there's also one disturbing video, which seems to illustrate part of the shooter's plans to attack that church. The video shows a slab of wood, which has the words, no escape on it, among other things. Now, an actual slab of wood was found at the scene blocking a door of the church from the outside. We have also learned that the shooter identified as female and changed their name legally from Robert to Robin in 2020 with the permission of their mother.

And, John, last night, the shooter's uncle, he is a former Kentucky lawmaker named Bob Hellinger, he spoke to CNN affiliate, WLEX, and called the attack in unspeakable tragedy. The uncle also told the Associated Press, quote, I wish he had shot me instead of innocent school children. John?

BERMAN: All right, still so many questions. Brian Todd, thank you for that. Erica?

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Joining me now, Criminologist and Behavioral Analyst Casey Jordan. Casey, as we look at all of this, as Brian laid out this obsession with past shootings, the police chief using the word idolizing, we see all of that, right, and these signs pointing to a desire for suicide. And yet, I think for so many people, this raises the question, if someone is struggling that much, if they perhaps are hoping that this ends in the taking of their own life, why then target innocent young children? Is there a pattern that points to something like that?

CASEY JORDAN, CRIMINOLOGIST AND BEHAVIORAL ANALYST: The short answer is that we can never forget that homicide -- that suicide is self- homicide, so when somebody is in a tremendous amount of pain. And I have to say, you know, they're searching for a motive. The motive is to end Robin's pain.

But in the process of making that decision, Robin came very close to deciding if I'm going to go out, why don't I make a statement on my way? And the statement is there. It's in the manifesto, it's in the journals, it's in the videos. We call that leakage. And in this particular case, we have a lot of it.

[09:35:01]

But just understand that once somebody loses respect for their own life, it is a hair's breath away from taking other lives for the sole purpose of making a statement. And I think the statement was not so much as I want to destroy these children. It was like, look at me, I had to do this to get attention for my pain.

So, I really think your overwhelming motive is based in mental illness, but the leakage got taken out on these innocent school children. Let's not forget, this is where Robin went to school. His mother worked there, and it could have been the source of a great deal of bullying and pain for him in their childhood.

HILL: For -- when we look at, you mentioned that the leakage with the videos that the shooter had posted, what else was out there, there is always a discussion after these horrific incidents about signs that may have been missed or if signs were seen, how they could be reported. Are you seeing evidence that people are getting better about noticing concerning signs among others in their community and reporting them, or is that part of the missing link that we have, people knowing where to go if they see something?

JORDAN: That's a great question, Erica. And, you know, you have to understand right now I'm five minutes from Sandy Hook, and that shooter there was a student at my own university. So, we ask ourselves these questions all the time, did we miss something? And I have to give a shout out to Sandy Hook Promise for their If You See Something, Say Something, right?

So, when you see someone in pain, getting them the help is really critical. But there seems to be a failure from the time that we identify a person in crisis to getting them the help. Very often that help is incredibly hard to get. And let's never forget the people who are in the throes of depression. And Robin describe themselves as severely depressed. We have not just got to get the resources, we have to be able to get that person to the resources, because a depressed person's the least able to help themselves get that counseling that they need. And sometimes that means making the phone call for them, driving them there, getting an interventionist into your house, but get that help to the person who is in crisis. That's the answer to stopping the bulk of this violence.

HILL: It's such an important point, and the access -- in addition to noticing the signs, the access can also be key hopefully in preventing yet another tragedy.

Casey, thank you.

Still to come here, Russian strikes overnight bombarding Ukraine's capital. The search for survivors still underway at this hour.

Plus, the first day back at school, and it turns out some of the local yellow jackets wanted in on the action.

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[09:40:00]

ERMAN: All right. And there is breaking news. Lawyers for Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook just filed a lawsuit to prevent President Trump from firing her.

Let's get right to CNN's Katelyn Polantz. You're getting your first look at this suit. What are you learning, Katelyn?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, it is now a battle for the court to look at the firing of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, which Trump did three days ago by posting on social media he wanted her off of that board.

This is yet another situation where someone who has been fired by the president is going to court to try to block that from happening, but it's different here, John, because this is the Federal Reserve, the independent central bank of the United States. That is one of the reasons here that this lawsuit is arguing she should not be able to be fired.

Here's a quote from the lawyers for Lisa Cook in this complaint now on file in the federal court in Washington. The operational independence of the Federal Reserve is vital to its ability to make sound economic decisions, free from the political pressures of an election cycle. And they do spell out possible economic doom and gloom that could happen if there is too much authority given to the president over who -- if someone on the Federal Reserve Board can be removed.

But, John, this is also going to be a different case than those others because Donald Trump has said he's firing Lisa Cook for cause, because there are allegations of fraud around a mortgage application. Her lawyers say those are entirely unproven allegations. They were allegations about something that may have happened before she was Senate confirmed to this board. And they write, President Trump does not have the power to unilaterally redefine cause around her termination, completely unmoored to case law, history, and tradition, and conclude without evidence that he has found it they're now going to ask a court to weigh in, and this could move pretty fast in the court system. John?

BERMAN: Does the suit appear to address the substance of the allegations that President Trump is making against her about the mortgage fraud? I guess he's not making it, but it's -- that are being made?

POLANTZ: It walks through what the allegations are, but a lot of what this suit is doing is it's arguing that these are unproven allegations and the president can't just say, these are allegations enough to provide a cause for her to be fired at this time. So, that's how they're using this as part of the lawsuit to argue back. This case is very likely going to turn on that, and this is one of those cases that could very well go the whole way to the Supreme Court.

BERMAN: Expect it will.

Katelyn Polantz getting your first look at the paperwork here, thanks so much for sharing it with us.

All right, new this morning, one of the students who survived the Minneapolis shooting describing how she will feel when she returns to school.

[09:45:02]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUNE HOLINE, SHOOTING SURVIVOR: I'm probably going to feel like a little bit nervous, but then I'm going to know that I'm pretty safe because they've already got the guy that did it. And I think that everybody else is like going to be there too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. The Minneapolis community is coming together to mourn, and there was a vigil, several, last night.

Megan Walsh helped plan one of them. She's a professor and director of the Gun Violence Prevention Law Clinic at the University of Minnesota. It's just a few miles from the scene.

Just talk to me first about the community, Professor. How is the community doing? You get the sense it was already a bit on edge.

PROF. MEGAN WALSH, DIRECTOR OF GUN VIOLENCE PREVENTION LAW CLINIC, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: Thank you for having me here. I'm so sorry to have to speak about these things and I can't really speak on behalf of the entire community, but, for me, there's a tremendous amount of grief but also a lot of gratefulness to the hospitals and the first responders. But underneath all of it is a lot of anger because we know this is happening over and over again, and we know it's preventable.

And Minneapolis and Minnesota as a whole is already still warning the deaths of our legislator, Melissa Hortman and her husband. And I will say that I was at a candlelight vigil, not just last night, but a couple months ago, and my friends kept a box of candles and said, we're going to need these again. And I don't think any of us realize it would be this soon.

BERMAN: You said your phone is being filled with text messages from people asking you questions about what to do. What are people asking? What do they want to know?

WALSH: I think, initially, I'm a mom of young kids. I dropped off my daughter at kindergarten for her very first day yesterday in her pigtails with her first day of school sign, and heard about the shooting shortly thereafter. So, a lot of people calling me are parents and are wondering, how do I talk to my kids about this? How can I tell them that this happened again? And what do I talk about when they ask if we're going to be safe?

But people want to do something. And I think one of the things I heard a lot last night was a commitment to making sure that action happens after this tragedy so that more families don't have to experience what our community members had to experience yesterday and will continue to experience throughout their lives.

BERMAN: What kind of action?

WALSH: What we are seeing so far suggests that one of the weapons used was an assault weapon. And people are not choosing those weapons for lawful purposes. They're using them because they kill as many people as possible and as quickly as possible. And those are weapons that not deserve to be in our communities, and we do not deserve our children to be paying the price of allowing that.

All of those weapons were purchased lawfully. And so there are things we can do, and I do ask my legislators and the people listening today to support an assault weapons ban here in Minnesota but also nationwide.

BERMAN: Professor Megan Walsh, we appreciate you being with us this morning, dropping your own daughter off at school yesterday at kindergarten.

All right, a man caught on camera planting homemade devices, seemingly explosive devices, outside a fire station. The other crimes he may be connected to.

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[09:50:00]

HILL: This is a rough start. More than 40 students stung by yellow jackets on the first day of school when students arrived at David Mindess Elementary School, this is just outside of Boston, Wednesday morning, apparently something disturbed an underground nest.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I was in, I saw kids crying coming in because they were stung.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They started attacking, everyone was trying to run to the exit and they kept following them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Oof. Some of the yellow jackets made their way into the building, got into some people's clothing. The good news here, no severe reactions to those stings. An exterminator was brought in to remove the nest.

Police in Prince George's County, Maryland, are asking for the public's help in finding a man they say has now put several incendiary devices outside a fire department. This is happening over the last three months releasing this surveillance video. They say the man needs to be found before someone gets hurt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF JAMES MCCREARY, PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY POLICE: God forbid one of our young people get a hold of one of these devices and become harmed. That is the last thing that we need on our conscious as Prince George's County.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Police also noting that, fortunately, they say the devices have not been lit, nor have any of them been detonated so far. John?

BERMAN: That's good news.

All right, breaking it this hour, a search for survivors in Ukraine's capital after a huge Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv, the second largest error assault of the war. Video shows the strikes as they happen. The death toll has risen now to at least 18, that includes four children killed.

Salma Abdelaziz in London following this for us. Salma, what's the latest?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, if you're asking what and how is President Putin responding to these peace efforts, well, today, Kyiv suffered the second largest aerial attack by Russia since the conflict began. Ukrainian authorities saying nearly 600 drones and 30 missiles were fired at the capital, in some parts of the city.

[09:55:01]

People were under air raid sirens for nine hours. At least 18 people killed so far. Among those victims are children. The youngest is just two years old.

And we are, of course, now hearing what the target or what was hit by these strikes, which includes residential buildings, homes, a kindergarten, and it also includes a building belonging to the European Union Mission and a building belonging to the British Council. Both those parties have summoned top Russian diplomats to discuss these strikes.

And, of course, this is happening as these peace efforts continue led, of course, by President Trump who has been trying to push for a bilateral meeting between President Zelenskyy and President Putin. But there is no sign that that is taking place. In fact, President Zelenskyy says that. President Putin is choosing ballistic missiles over the negotiating table.

We do also understand that Ukrainian officials will be meeting with President Trump's top officials in New York tomorrow to continue to push that peace process and discuss these security guarantees. But in the meanwhile, we're seeing a tried and true Russian strategy here, John, as these peace efforts stall on the ground, their offensive intensifies, and the drones and missiles keep raining down on civilians in Ukraine.

BERMAN: Yes, those don't look like peace efforts.

Salma Abdelaziz. Thank you very much for that.

HILL: Certainly not.

BERMAN: All right. Thank you all for joining us. This has been CNN News Central. Situation Room up next.

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