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The Situation Room

Deadly Mass Shooting at Minneapolis School; Minneapolis Suspected Shooter is Deceased. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired August 27, 2025 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST AND FORMER DEPUTY FBI DIRECTOR: -- clear the entire premises. And then, you might see more SWAT teams, the FBI SWAT team, or other local SWAT teams brought in to do that, to go through every room, every closet, every hallway very carefully and slowly to ensure that there are no more threats.

And then, of course, you come to the point that we've seen far too many times in this country, which is just the work of the crime scene technicians, the FBI evidence recovery team will likely be brought in to help the local police in that effort, and that's a laborious process of documenting all of the horror and the evidence that likely exists inside this place.

As for the timing, I mean, the fact that it happened in the first week of school is awful and disgusting, but we shouldn't be surprised by any of that because we have seen awful and disgusting with these with these horrible attacks so many times now that it almost seems -- it's hard to imagine that we are still seeing new things that are like newly offensive and surprising.

The assembly of the school in a publicly announced and known calendar, known -- you know, you -- anyone who is seeking to try to maximize damages in an attack like this, the fact that they know that the entire school will be assembled under one roof at a particular time of the day, that can have negative consequences on how many people get hurt.

So, we don't know if that's something that this shooter planned on or whether they just happened to get there at that moment in time. All those details are things that investigators will be trying to uncover as the days and weeks follow, but obviously, a lot left for us to try to learn here as we know very little at this time.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: It's every parent's worst nightmare, right? I mean, just sending your kids to school, hoping they'll be safe. But we know the reality we live in now of school shootings, they do happen. I mean, this -- it brings back to memory the school shooting at the Covenant School where you had the former student, Audrey Hale, who killed three-nine-year-olds, three adults, and the investigation showed that she had researched and she had planned that violent act for years. This of course happened in 2023.

So, we are waiting for more details on what happened here at this school, the Annunciation School. It's a school that goes from preschool to eighth grade. It's attached to a church. A mass was happening this morning at 8:15 a.m. there, and that appears to be around the time that the shooting allegedly happened.

We -- the Minnesota governor says police are responding to this horrific act of violence, but not providing any more details in these early hours of what exactly transpired, whether the suspect here or suspects is alive, dead, in custody. We just don't know. We don't have those answers. But we are going to continue to give you updates. Standby, everyone. We're monitoring this, gathering more information and we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:35:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

BROWN: Breaking news, the Minnesota governor says police are responding to a shooting at a Catholic school in Minneapolis. And we are now learning from the City of Minneapolis that the shooter is, quote, "contained." Let's go live now to CNN Correspondent Isabel Rosales who is following this. What's the latest, Isabel?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we do have that statement by the City of Minneapolis that has also been reposted by Minneapolis PD. And what you said, that is a big takeaway, that the shooter has been, quote/unquote, "contained." We don't know if that means that the shooter is dead or has been apprehended, but this is the direct statement from the City of Minneapolis, there is no active threat to the community at this time. The shooter is contained. Stay away from the area to follow -- to allow emergency personnel to help victims.

CNN has also reached out and heard back from a PIO, a public information officer of a level one trauma center in the vicinity that this is Hennepin Healthcare who said this to CNN, we are dealing with an emergency situation at this time and urge people to watch their social media's accounts for updates.

But basically, just to reset here, Pamela, this is a shooting that has been reported at Annunciation Church, a Catholic. church. This is in South Minneapolis where we have seen a large police presence. And in fact, these are live images right now of our CNN affiliate, WCCO. You can see all of the tape, all of the police officers there. At moments, we've also seen FBI agents walking around in this live shot.

And we also did find out from the website of the church and school that an all-school mass was likely underway at the time of this reported shooting. Monday was the first day of school for students at this K through eight Catholic school. We've gotten a comment too from the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz. He put up a statement on social media saying that he's been briefed on this, sending his thoughts and prayers to the kids and teachers going through this during their first week of school. The mayor of Minneapolis says he's aware of this as well. And obviously, the FBI, they're aware and says that they're sending more people on route there to the scene. Pam. BROWN: All right. Isabel. I'm going to bring in CNN Security Correspondent Josh Campbell. Just to get your take on what this means, Josh, when they say the shooter is, quote, "contained."

[10:40:00]

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: So, that's a pretty general term. That could mean a number of things, including a barricade type situation, perhaps a suspect has been taken into custody, perhaps a suspect is deceased. But because of the other part of that tweet where they actually say that there is no active threat at that time -- at this time, that signals that the authorities likely have some kind of control over this person. Again, whether they're in custody, they may have been killed either by themselves or police.

But the key part there is authorities, once they have information that the community needs, again, to try to provide them some type of assurance that there is not an ongoing threat to them, they'll try to get that out. And so, they're trying to walk that line I think here with that tweet. If it turns out the suspect is indeed deceased, you know, the investigative part will have to look elsewhere. They can't interview the suspected shooter here.

And so, whenever they're trying to get to that motive, that will require other actions to try to do that, talking to people that this individual may have known after they identified them. But that's what we're looking at right now.

BROWN: Yes. And typically, per this study done by the U.S. Secret Service, looking at 41 school shootings, the suspect, the shooter is subdued or arrested rather than killed at the scene. So, we'll have to wait for confirmation of what the situation is and what contained means. Also, typically, Josh, it's one suspect, it's one shooter rather than multiple, right?

CAMPBELL: That's correct. I mean, that's almost always the case. Of course, authorities come in with an open mind. We have seen incidents such as in San Bernardino, California where there were indeed two people. Oftentimes, whenever these reports come in, because there are multiple 911 calls initially and kind of the fog of war as authorities are arriving, there might be reports of additional shooters. But as you mentioned, you know, studies have shown that it's almost always one person.

But we know in this day and age, depending on the type of weaponry, and that's what we're trying to determine, what type of firearm may have been used here, depending on what the size and model and, you know, ammunition capacity of that weapon, this is someone who could have done a lot of damage. And so, there's still a lot we're trying to determine what brought about this resolution, was this police arriving exchanging in some type of gunfire with the suspect? If the suspect is deceased, was it the person, you know, surrendering or perhaps taking their own life? We've seen all of those different possibilities play out in shootings. And so, we're waiting for it for confirmation that this person is actually down. BROWN: Yes. Hopefully, the police there in Minneapolis will give us an update soon. Standby, everyone. We are continuing to monitor this and gather more information. And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:45:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

BROWN: We have some breaking news. The Minnesota governor says police are responding to a shooting at a Catholic school in Minneapolis, and we are now learning from the City of Minneapolis that the shooter is, quote, "contained," and that there is no ongoing threat there in the community. Senator Amy Klobuchar just posted on X, quote, "I'm heartbroken by the horrific violence at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis this morning. My prayers are with the students, teachers, and families, and I'm grateful for the first responders who are on the scene." And Senator Tina Smith posted in part, it's the first week of school. These kids should not be fearing for their lives.

WCCO Reporter, Heather Brown is reporting from the scene. Heather.

HEATHER BROWN, WCCO REPORTER: I know the school quite well. It is a very tight knit community that is surrounded by the church over there. It's a neighborhood school. I mean, there are people who are from South Minneapolis, who are from Richfield that go to this school. Many of them, their parents went to this school. And now they go to this school here. It's -- you know, compared to some schools now, it's a smaller size school, but has quite a number of students who all gather in that church every Wednesday morning there.

And I just -- I think a lot now, Caroline (ph), I think you can understand this about, this is the start of the school year and what this means for these kids who are starting this year. And it's, you know, looking into the future and what this will be like in the next day, in the next week, in the next month, in the rest of the school year here. Not just that fear, but the fear then of what these school shootings bring to us, not only here in South Minneapolis, in Minnesota, across the country.

I've been getting text messages left and right. Are you -- are the kids OK? Are you OK? I mean, and this is from -- one came from North Carolina, one came from California.

BROWN: All right. Let's go live now to CNN Correspondent Isabel Rosales. Because, Isabel, you were learning more about what contained means as it relates to the suspect.

ROSALES: Right. Pam, we have new reporting from my colleagues, Mark Morales and Hannah Rabinowitz, who have spoken with sources familiar with the situation, and they have it confirmed that the suspected shooter is deceased. So, when we're hearing from the City of Minneapolis that the shooter has been contained, we're hearing from sources that this shooter is in fact deceased. The shooting happened at around 8:30 a.m. We're hearing too from the City of Minneapolis indicating that while the situation is, you know, contained, the shooter is contained, stay away from the area to allow emergency personnel to help. We've also spoken with a public information officer for a level one trauma center.

[10:50:00]

So, this would be the sort of hospital that's equipped to deal with this sort of emergency, a gunshot wound victim that they are dealing with a, quote/unquote, "emergency situation" at this time. And obviously, this outpouring of support from senators, from the governor of Minnesota, so many people have been briefed, as we're seeing these live images from our CNN affiliate, WCCO, showing a trooper right there, the yellow emergency tape as they're going in there and continuing the next steps of this active scene and investigation. Pamela.

BROWN: All right. And President Trump now releasing this Truth Social about the shooting, saying, I have been fully briefed on the tragic shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The FBI quickly responded and they are on the scene. The White House will continue to monitor this terrible situation. Please join me in praying for everyone involved.

Andy McCabe, I want to bring you back in with this latest development that the suspect is deceased.

MCCABE: Yes. Well, it's obviously -- you know, we've seen this before. It is a not uncommon resolution to these shootings. The suspect is either engaged by law enforcement and killed in that exchange of fire or they take their own live for whatever reason after, you know, shooting the victims that they've chosen, essentially.

It's interesting to me here, Pam, that we're not -- what we're not seeing in the video right now is a flurry of ambulances taking injured but alive people away for medical treatment. So, it's hard to interpret whether that's a positive or negative thing at this point with what little facts we have to work on. But it is also --

BROWN: Let me just jump in really quick on that, Andy, because I asked the same question earlier. We do want to note though, this is just one vantage point that we have in terms of a camera. So, we don't have the full lay of the land. But it is -- you're right, where we're looking at now, you don't see ambulances and sort of that rush that you might expect.

MCCABE: Yes. What you do see is a lot of law enforcement folks coming and going in and out of the perimeter and likely kind of initiating what we talked about before, which is that processing of the crime scene stage, which is what we'll see here for the next, you know, 12 hours, maybe 24 hours, depending on how extensive that is.

So, you'll see more assets coming in, more personnel coming in and out, bringing equipment, things like that, and that seems to be the beginning of what we're seeing now in the video. BROWN: Yes. And as I said earlier, when you look at school shootings, particularly at religious institutions, oftentimes you see that the shooter is a former student. In fact, according to a 2016 Everytown analysis of the New York City Police Department's review of after shooter incidents between kindergarten and 12th grade, 75 percent of the time it's a former student at that school.

Now, in this case we don't know. We have no details about the suspect other than that the suspect has been -- is now deceased, according to officials. We don't know the circumstances around that. But as an investigator, a former FBI investigator, what are the questions you're asking right now, Andy?

MCCABE: Well, you know, first and foremost, what we're kind of -- with the knowledge that the shooter is deceased, we're now moving into that mode of trying to unlock the mystery about how this person, why this person chose this place at this time. And as you just mentioned with those statistics, that is one -- that may be part of resolving that mystery if the shooter was associated with the school in the past as a student or an employee or what have you, or we have also seen in shootings at particularly religious institutions and schools with religious in institutions, shooters have chosen those locations because of some animus towards that religious group. So, it's really a very wide array of possible motives right now.

And again, you know, some people will say like, well, we've seen this so many times. Why is it so important to know? It's crucially important for investigators to try to understand as much about that process as they can to try to -- it informs our ability to understand which locations in our communities are the most vulnerable and potentially next targets. It helps investigators and officers respond to threat reporting as they get it. They know where to go first, which places -- which doors to knock on first and say, hey, we have an awareness of a particular -- a possible threat stream, and you should take the following steps to protect yourself and your community.

[10:55:00]

So, it really does -- in ways that we don't see on television every day, it really does inform the process of trying to keep the community safe.

BROWN: And I'm just learning, Andy, that there will be an 11:30 a.m. press conference by the Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey. We hope to learn more. We don't have any details of whether anyone was killed besides the shooter in this situation who was deceased or if there are any injuries. So, we are hoping to learn more from officials.

But just to take a step back, to think about this tragedy in the context of school just started this week on Monday. And as you know, Andy, the beginning of school is full of so much hope and so much joy for the kids and the parents, and now, this horrific shooting at that school. We're going to continue to monitor this, and we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

BROWN: And we are following the breaking news, a shooting at a Catholic school in Minneapolis --

[11:00:00]