Minneapolis School Shooting Video Shows Children Fleeing Church

The Minnesota Catholic school shooting that left 2 kids dead and 17 people injured caused widespread panic ... and now there's new video capturing students in a mad rush for the exits.

CNN released the wild footage Thursday, which shows dozens of kids stampeding out of Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis the day before. Older students are seen hurrying younger ones through a set of doors, kids cowering behind pews, and others simply weeping.

Adults seem to be urging scared kids to run to them in order to escape the house of worship ... and, as you can see, CNN's blurred a section in the background. Unclear what exactly they covered up here.

As you know ... a shooter -- believed to be 23-year-old Robin Westman -- arrived outside the church around 8:30 AM local time Wednesday and began firing through the glass windows -- with a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol, police say -- into the crowd of children and other attendees. Westman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene.

CNN reports Westman visited the school several weeks before the shooting took place ... and also reports Westman graduated from the grade school in 2017. It appears Westman reportedly left behind a manifesto ... in which Westman appears to have expressed an obsession with Adam Lanza -- the Sandy Hook school shooter.

The dispatch audio from the incident details some gruesome injuries caused during the shooting ... including at least one gunshot wound to the head.