A 15-year-old student on Monday opened fire inside a study hall at a small Christian school in Wisconsin, killing a teacher and teenager, and prompting a swarm of police officers responding to a second-grade student’s 911 call.
The female student wounded six others in the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School, including two students who were in critical condition, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said.
A teacher and three students were taken to hospital with less serious injuries, and two of them were later released.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Every child, every person in that building is a victim and will be a victim forever... We need to figure out and try to piece together what exactly happened,” Barnes said.
Police said the shooter, identified as Natalie Rupnow, was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound when officers arrived and died en route to hospital. Barnes declined to offer additional details about the shooter, partly out of respect for the family.
Abundant Life is a nondenominational Christian school with approximately 420 students in Madison.
Barbara Wiers, director of elementary and school relations, said when the school practices safety routines, leaders always announce that it is a drill. That did not happen on Monday, just a week before the Christmas break.
“When they heard: ‘Lockdown, lockdown,’ they knew it was real,” she said.
Wiers said the school does not have metal detectors, but uses other security measures including cameras.
A motive for the shooting was not immediately known, nor was it clear if the victims were targeted, Barnes said.
“I don’t know why, and I feel like if we did know why, we could stop these things from happening,” he told reporters.
Barnes said police were talking with the shooter’s father and other family members, who were cooperating, and searching the shooter’s home.
“He lost someone as well and so we’re not going to rush the information,” Barnes said of the shooter’s father. “We’ll take our time and make sure we do our due diligence.”
The first 911 call to report an active shooter came in shortly before 11am. First responders who were in training just 5km away dashed to the school, Barnes said. They arrived three minutes after the call.
Police blocked off roads around the school, and federal agents were at the scene to assist local law enforcement. No shots were fired by police.
Children and families were reunited at a health clinic about 1.6km from the school. Parents pressed children against their chests, while others squeezed hands and shoulders as they walked side by side.
Bethany Highman, the mother of a student, rushed to the school and learned on FaceTime that her daughter was not injured.
“As soon as it happened, your world stops for a minute. Nothing else matters,” Highman said.
US President Joe Biden in a statement cited the tragedy in calling on the US Congress to pass universal background checks, a national red flag law and certain gun restrictions.
“We can never accept senseless violence that traumatizes children, their families, and tears entire communities apart,” Biden said.
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said that the US needs to do more to prevent gun violence.
“I hoped that this day would never come to Madison,” she said.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS