Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on the Minneapolis school shooting

Minneapolis' Police Chief says they'll be working to make sure schools are protected following a shooting which killed two children. 

Eighteen people were also injured when a gunman shot through church windows at Annunciation Catholic School, before turning a gun on himself. 

The FBI's investigating the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and hate crimes targeting Catholics. 

US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking a survey reveals that in the last year, there were at least 91 shootings on school grounds – almost two a week. 

He says the leading cause of death for children and teenagers in the United States is not illness or accidents, it’s gun violence.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ah Richard Arnold, morning to you, gooding.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
So let me give a lot of grief, a lot
of hugs, a lot of tears, and yet another debate
about gunballs. Familiar story. A President Trump is ordered that
flags around this country flat half mass because of the
deadly shooting attack on children praying at a Catholic school
in Minneapolis.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Two children, one aged eight and the other ten, were
killed when a young shooter opened fire through stained glass
windows during mass at the school. Eighteen other people have
been wounded, of whom one is critical at the minute.
Two others remain in serious condition. A ten year old
named Weston, who was in this place, has told of
another child saving his life by covering him.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
My friend got hit in the back.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Who's like right beside me.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
I was like two seats away from the steam glass windows.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
I think I got a gunpowder on my neck. This
is a ten year old.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
This is what he is living with. He says he
thinks his friend is okay. That remains unclear. The person
who is critical as touch and go, and while doctors
want to confirm it, this could be the one who
saved this boy's life. How does a ten year old
live with this? How do all the children who just
went through this terror live with this? We're hearing a
lot of folks offering thoughts and prayers, which has become

(01:10):
kind of cliche in these off repeated situations. The local mayor,
Jacob Frye, is saying of this response.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Don't just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now.
These kids were literally praying.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Prayers are righteous, he says.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
But do something, is his message, says Carla Maldonado, whose
child survived this.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
My mind is going everywhere like this is not the
first time. I'm not the first parents to express these concerns.
I'm not the first mom to say how many more
kids have to get killed? And so it's a little
bit like this is feeling like a broken record and
it's not okay.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
You wouldn't know it from the deafening silence from many politicians.
A broken record, she says. I just pulled up a
list of mass shootings at churches and other places.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Of worship here over the past decade.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
It is a type page full of them, including the
mass shooting at the Message Church in Charleston ten years
back by a twenty one year old white supremacist where
he murdered nine worshipers and a preacher after praying with
them for about an hour.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Do you think of other.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Situations Sandy Hook, which Obama called the worst moment of
his presidency, where twenty six people were shot dead at
an elementary school, including twenty children, many ages six and seven,
is young enough. David Hogg survived the mass shooting at
Parkland in Florida, where a shooter killed seventeen students and
staff seven years ago. He now has become an activist

(02:33):
on the young subject and says to the president, now.

Speaker 4 (02:37):
My message to Donald Trump is that you are a coward, Sir.
You are not going to do anything about this issue
because you were terrified of the na even though you
have the power to save tens of thousands of lives.
You were the strongest president in modern American history, with
a chokehold over your party and both chambers of Congress.
You have the power to end this, but you are
not going to because you're a damn coward.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Media coverage of these is often similar. As you've indicated,
it could have been worse. This shooter, who took his
own life, had tried to get into the Chapel days earlier.
We now find the shooter was trans and trouble a monster,
says the White House that they're briefing today. And yet
he was able to buy several weapons legally in recent days.
How do you buy several weapons or within days without
raising any concerns?

Speaker 1 (03:19):
You know?

Speaker 2 (03:19):
The shooter left violent social media posts, as so many do,
but unheeded. The Murdoch New York Post is emphasizing the
trans aspect, which plows into their politics.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Let me close with this. A new survey shows that.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
In the past year here there were at least ninety
one shootings on school grounds. That is almost twice a week.
That's what children here are living with. The leading cause
of death for children and teenagers in this country is
not illness, it's not accidents, It is gun violence.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Richard Donold's sightside.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
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