Minneapolis shooting: Who is Brandon Herrera? Second Amendment activist named in now-deleted video of attacker

Minneapolis school shooter Robin Westman(left), Brandon Herrera(right)

Brandon Herrera, a Second Amendment activist, YouTuber, and Texas Republican congressional candidate, has distanced himself from a Minneapolis school shooter Robin Westman, who mentioned him in a video manifesto posted online before the attack. Herrera, a 28-year-old YouTuber with over 3 million subscribers popularly known as ‘The AK Guy, is famous for his advocacy of gun rights and the Second Amendment, has caught up in a controversy. The gunman, identified as Robin Westman, opened fire at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Wednesday, killing two children and wounding 17 others before dying of an apparent self-inflicted injury. In a video uploaded to YouTube shortly before the massacre, Westman praised Herrera, claiming he had met him at the SHOT Show — a major firearms industry expo in Las Vegas — and urged viewers to “vote for Brandon Herrera for president.”“Yeah, I met Brandon Herrera at SHOT Show last year and he and I had a conversation, a brief conversation, we agreed on a lot of things, so y’all should vote for Brandon Herrera for president,” Westman said in the video, reported New York Post.Herrera said that he doesn’t “remember this individual at all, nor does anyone [he] was there with.” The clip, which displayed notebooks, bullets, and painted weapons, was taken down by YouTube after the shooting. Herrera clarified in a statement that he has no recollection of ever meeting Westman, condemning the attack in strong terms. “I’m horrified by this clearly hate-motivated attack on innocent children and disgusted that my name came out of this demon’s mouth,” he said. “I don’t remember this individual at all, nor does anyone I was with. Nonetheless, I am making myself fully available to investigators,” he said. He further added that he was cooperating with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, and was also working with friends in law enforcement to help support families of the victims. “The FBI is investigating this shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and hate crime targeting Catholics,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X.