Lilliana Young, a Democrat running for District 61, which represents Bloomington, allegedly made comments last year regarding a school shooter that got her banned from a Discord server.
Under a Reddit post announcing a meet-the-candidate town hall for Young, one user brought up comments Young made regarding Robin Westman, the suspect involved in the shooting of the Annunciation Catholic School in August 2025, calling Westman a victim.
Two children were killed at the shooting in Minneapolis, and 18 others were injured. Westman, the Minneapolis police’s only suspect, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. According to ABC, a district court in Minnesota approved a name change for a person with the same birth date to Robin Westman in 2020 to reflect her gender identity.
“In my view, Robin was our sister, though poisoned and twisted. She was as much a victim as those she killed,” Young allegedly wrote. “I’m also a mother. I grieve for those kids, too. I never said anything was justified” the comments continued.
The user, Alyssa Walton, brought up comments Young allegedly made in a Discord server Walton created for LGBTQ+ Hoosiers. According to Walton and logs of the server, Young made the comments Sept. 4, 2025, after someone in the server shared a link to a news article about the shooting.
Young went on to allegedly say that what happened to Westman “was a matter of environment” and that she was “groomed into what she became by overexposure to conservative extremism” which she said could have happened to anyone.
According to chat logs provided by Walton, Young allegedly said Westman’s “internalized transphobia against herself was part of what drove her to be so insane.”
Walton said the reaction to the comments in the server, which had around 350 users, was generally negative, with people expressing disbelief and shock. Young was later banned from the server because of the comments.
Walton responded in the Reddit thread to Young’s post, asking if she still held that view and felt the same way about cisgender shooters.
“I don't know how to quantify what happened to Robin that made her into what she became, but I do know that killing children is irredeemably evil,” the user who claimed to be Young and initially posted the town hall announcement responded.
Young did not directly respond to questions asking if she had written the comments or if she still holds that view.
“The murder of children is a horrible, unforgivable act which has no equal,” Young wrote in an email to the Indiana Daily Student. “It's because of tragedies like this that I advocate for community outreach and education, so we may combat the religious dogma that teaches young and struggling LGBTQ people to grow up poisoned by shame and self-loathing, as I understand Robin did.”
Young went on to write she would champion access to healthcare services so that “those who have been groomed by the radicalized hatred of white supremacists and neo nazis, as Robin was, can be readily and easily treated before they commit such heinous acts.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said in an X post after the shooting that the suspect’s actions were motivated by “hate-filled ideology” and that Westman left anti-Catholic, antisemitic and anti-religious references on evidence, as well as an “explicit call for violence” against President Donald Trump.
Other experts told NPR there wasn’t a clear ideological motive behind the shooting, referencing Westman’s apparent obsession with mass killers and extremist views on both ends of the political spectrum.
Young is challenging incumbent House Representative Matt Pierce, a Democrat, for District 61 in a rare contested Democratic primary. Pierce was first elected in 2002 and has not had a primary or general election challenger since defeating the Republican candidate in 2010.
