A courageous 13-year-old student who lived through the terrifying Minneapolis church shooting during a Catholic school’s first mass of the year is now opening up about how he managed to protect himself and his “buddies” in the middle of the chaos.
Javen Willis, 13, survived the shooting that took place on Wednesday at Annunciation Catholic School. As we previously reported, two kids, ages 8 and 10, were killed while 17 other people were injured in the shooting. The shooter, identified as Robin Westman, 23, a former student at the school, died by suicide.
Recounting the horrific moments, Javen said he initially thought the gunshots were fireworks. But he immediately knew something was wrong given the time of day. He said,
“Honestly, it was just at that point, I was like I want to try to keep everybody as safe as possible. So I told me and my two buddies to get down and to get under the pew. And right when I told them that it was like a state of shock for me and I knew that I had to try to keep as many people around me as I could safe,” Javen said to the Today Show.
While trying to protect himself, Javen went on to say,
“Right when it happened, I dropped down under the pew, like I said, and I prayed and I said my few prayers,” Willis, who was just baptized last week, said. “I realized I can’t just sit here and focus on myself knowing that with God on my side I would be fine, so I had to just go and help out my fellow classmates to try and keep them calm and safe and let them know that it’ll be OK.”
While speaking to the news outlet, Javen realized he wasn’t the only hero. He also took time to thank Minneapolis police for their efforts.
“I didn’t want to just sit there and think about it, so I just thanked the officers ‘cause without them, who knows how much worse this could’ve been,” he said. “It was bad, in general, but it could’ve been way worse than that if they didn’t show up when they did.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said a motive has yet to be determined. However, FBI Director Kash Patel said that this attack will be investigated as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime targeting Catholics.