MADISON, Wis. (Wisconsin Examiner) — Three people are dead and another six are in the hospital after a shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, Monday morning. The shooter, who was a student at the school, is among the dead, according to Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes.
Two of the injured victims, both students, remain in critical condition while the other four have non-life threatening injuries, Barnes said at a mid-afternoon press conference.
Barnes identified the shooter at a Monday night press conference as Natalie Rupnow, 15, who went by the name “Samantha,” and said she appeared to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Gov. Tony Evers issued a statement decrying the shootings and announced he would order flags to fly half-staff across the state through Sunday, Dec. 22.
“As a father, a grandfather, and as governor, it is unthinkable that a kid or an educator might wake up and go to school one morning and never come home. This should never happen, and I will never accept this as a foregone reality or stop working to change it,” Evers said.
Chief Barnes said a second-grade student called 911 at 10:57 a.m. Monday to report a shooting at the school.
“Let that sink in,” he repeated twice at a news briefing, AP reports. Police arrived within four minutes, he said. The shooting occurred in a study hall, police said.
Officers responded to the shooting at the K-12 private school shortly before 11 a.m. on Dec. 16, Barnes said. While clearing the building, officers found the person they believe to be responsible already dead, along with the other two people who were killed, one a teacher and the other a student. No officers fired their weapons during the incident.
Police searched a home on Madison’s North Side late Monday afternoon and evening and said the search was in connection with the shooting.
The shooter used a handgun, Barnes said. Her family was cooperating in the investigation, but there was no immediate information about what the individual’s motives may have been.
“You ask me about why, but I don’t know why, and I felt like if we did know why, we could stop these things from happening,” Barnes said.
In a statement, President Joe Biden called the shooting “shocking and unconscionable” and urged Congress to enact “Universal background checks. A national red flag law. A ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”
Biden was brief earlier Monday about the shooting according to the White House press pool.
At an earlier news conference, Barnes lamented the incident and its impact on the school and the community.
“I’m feeling a little dismayed now, so close to Christmas, every child, every person in that building is a victim and will be a victim forever,” Barnes said. “These types of trauma don’t just go away. We need to figure out how to piece together what exactly happened right now. My heart is heavy for my community. My heart is heavy for Madison. We have to come together as a community and figure out what happened here and make sure that it doesn’t happen at any other place that should be a refuge for students in our community.”
Families of students showed up at the school before noon and at mid-afternoon were still lined up in their cars down Buckeye Road on Madison’s East Side waiting to be reunited with their children. Officials said they would not release information about the victims until families had been notified.
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway emphasized the community-wide impact of the incident.
“This is a whole of government response,” Rhodes-Conway said. “It is not just police and fire. It is not just the city of Madison, and we have folks from all around the country, we have folks from multiple agencies engaged in both the initial immediate response and the ongoing support.”
Barnes said he has been in contact with officials at the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI.
Although the Madison Police Department had earlier reported five deaths in the shooting, spokesperson Stephanie Fryer said that was based on information from the hospital where the victims were taken. Hospital personnel later updated the number of deaths to three people, she said.
