Minneapolis man comforted Annunciation school shooting victims while waiting for police to arrive

By Aki Nace

Click here for updates on this story

    MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Pat Scallen ran up to Annunciation Catholic Church as soon as he heard the gunshots Wednesday morning.

“I didn’t think there were gunshots at first, but after about the 10th shot, I knew they were,” he told CNN. “I knew it was either the church or the school or both. And my, my first visceral reaction was just outright anger. And I think that’s what drove me, that they, somebody was messing with my community.”

Children and parishioners were gathered in the church around 8:30 a.m. that morning for a Mass marking the beginning of the school year at Annunciation Catholic School. Two children, ages 8 and 10, were killed in the shooting. Fourteen children and three adults in their 80s were also injured, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara.

It was eerily quiet when Scallen first got there, he said. There was an empty magazine on the sidewalk near the east side of the church. Knowing that something was wrong, Scallen made his way towards the front doors.

“And as soon as I got there, the kids started coming out of the church,” Scallen recalled. “And kids were coming out and crying in shock, and, and some were very hurt, including the ones that I tried to help and take care of.”

Emergency personnel had yet to arrive, so Scallen said he zeroed in on three children: a boy and two girls. One girl had been shot in the head, and the other in the neck. The boy “just got a little bit brandished,” he said.

“I took all three of them. I said, ‘let’s sit down,'” Scallen said. “And I tried to calm them down. And the one little girl who got shot in the head asked me to hold her hand the whole time, and I did.”

Both of the girls could talk and weren’t bleeding, though they had been seriously hurt, Scallen said.

“They asked for their parents,” Scallen went on to say. “And they wanted their parents, and I reassured them that their parents, I would get in touch with their parents or someone would right away.”

“The boy that wasn’t that hurt was so brave. I mean, I kept asking him, he’s OK, and he just, ‘yes sir, I’m fine.’ And I know he was thinking of those other girls and those other two girls under the circumstances were just so brave,” he said.

Scallen said he is in contact with the parents of the girl who was shot in the head. She had undergone surgery, and is expected to recover. He did not know the status of the boy and the other girl.

O’Hara said during a press conference Wednesday afternoon that though the extent of injuries varied greatly, everyone who was sent to the hospital is expected to survive. The shooter ultimately died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Scallen himself attended Annunciation Catholic School and sent his three children there. Two of his grandchildren attend a Catholic school in St. Paul.

“When I went there, this, this just didn’t happen,” he said. “Unfortunately, times have changed.”

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.