Here’s what we know so far

A teacher and a student were killed Monday morning after a 15-year-old female student at a private Christian school in Madison, Wis., opened fire, police said. The suspect was also pronounced dead at the scene.

Madison police received a 911 call from a second grader at Abundant Life Christian School, a K-12 academy with approximately 390 students, at 1 p.m. 10:57 a.m. CT where they alerted them to a shooting. When they arrived at the scene, they found the suspect, identified by Madison police as Natalie Rupnow, with a gunshot wound. She died in transit to a hospital, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said at a news conference Monday evening.

“A teacher and a teenage student were pronounced dead at the scene at that school,” Barnes said. “Six other students and a teacher were injured and taken to area hospitals. Two students remain in critical condition with life-threatening injuries.”

Another teacher and three additional students were treated for “non-life-threatening injuries” and two of them have since been released from hospital.

“At this point, we believe there was only one shooter involved,” Barnes said.

At an earlier news conference, police said they had recovered the weapon used in the shooting, which Barnes said took place in a classroom made up of “students of mixed grades.”

The suspect

The motive for the shooting is under investigation, and the family of the suspect, who went by the name Samantha, has been cooperating with police, Barnes said.

Barnes also said there was nothing “to suggest that the school was a place where violence would occur” and added that he was not aware of any previous contact the suspect may have had with police.

“Everybody wants to know what led to this,” Barnes said. “Are there additional threats to public safety? Is this person, or was this person, alone? There are many questions that we would like to answer, but we need to answer the safety questions first.”

Barnes said the evidence suggests Rupnow died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but that an official cause of death would be determined by a medical examiner.

“A document about this shooting is (at) this time circulating on social media, but we have not confirmed its authenticity,” Barnes said.

Asked how Rupnow had obtained the gun used in the shooting, Barnes said, “That’s something that will be part of this investigation.”

Anxious moments for parents

Police evacuated students from the school and then transported them by bus to a nearby health clinic that served as a “reunification center” where their families could come and pick them up.

Rob Nelson was first alerted to the shooting by a text from his 14-year-old daughter, who wrote “not a drill … we heard a doll,” That was reported by the Washington Post.

Waiting to be reunited with her 12-year-old son, Viktoriya Gonzales said New York Times that she learned he was safe, but that he had been “severely traumatized because he was right next to the shooter.”

‘This must never happen’

In a nation that has already recorded more than 300 school shootings in 2024, the mood among officials at Monday’s news conference was one of disbelief that the trend had finally come to Madison.

“I’m kind of freaked out now, so close to Christmas,” Barnes said. “Every child, every person in that building is a victim and will be a victim forever.”

Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway echoed the grim reality her community now faces.

“I’m on the record that I think we need to do better in our country and our community to prevent gun violence. And I hoped this day would never come in Madison,” Rhodes-Conway said at the press conference. “It’s not something that any mayor, any fire chief, any police chief, any person in public office ever wants to have to deal with.”

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers ordered flags in the state to be flown at half-staff until December 22 in honor of the victims.

“It is unthinkable that a child or an educator could wake up and go to school one morning and never come home,” Evers said in a statement. “This should never happen and I will never accept this as a given or stop working to change it.”

In a statement, President Biden called the latest school shooting “shocking and unconscionable” and called on Congress to pass universal background checks for firearm purchases, a national red flag law and an assault weapons ban.

“From Newtown to Uvalde, Parkland to Madison, to so many other shootings that go unnoticed — it is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence,” Biden said in his statement.

Training day

Barnes noted that police had conducted a school shooting drill 3 miles from Abundant Life Christian School when the 911 call was received. “What began as a practice day turned into a real day,” Barnes said.

Asked by a reporter how safe parents should feel sending their children to school in the wake of Monday’s shooting, Barnes gave a blunt answer: “All I can tell you is that we have systems in place so that if something happens , we can react as we did today.”

“I guess you’re asking me, how can I say 100% that no child will ever be harmed at school? I can’t. No police chief can,” Barnes said.