The Latest: Madison police hold news conference on Wisconsin school shooting
Emergency vehicles are parked outside the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wis., following a shooting, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)[ASSOCIATED PRESS/Morry Gash]
Two people were killed and others were injured Monday in a shooting at a private Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin. Police said a student who opened fire, identified as a 15-year-old girl, was also dead.
The girl also 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.
Here’s the latest:
Mackenzie Truitt, 24, of Madison, came to the school just before 2 p.m. Tuesday to add a red poinsettia plant to a sidewalk memorial honoring the victims of the shooting.
People put flowers outside the Abundant Life Christian School Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024 in Madison, Wis., following a shooting on Monday. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Morry Gash
Her brother graduated from Abundant Life Christian School about a year ago. Yesterday, he called her to tell her about the shooting. Some of his friends were injured, she said. She declined to share more about their condition.
“My heart sunk because I know how awesome a lot of these kids are,” Truitt said. “I know how scared everybody was. Couldn’t get a hold of certain people. Just really scary having to deal with that.”
She said she grew up knowing many kids who attended the school and described a kind, compassionate community and selfless teachers.
“It’s sad how often these are happening and how mental health is declining,” she said. “And it doesn’t seem like there’s anything anybody can do to stop it.”
Pressed aggressively by reporters for more information, the mayor shot back: “It is absolutely none of y’all’s business who was harmed in this incident. Please, have some human decency and respect for people who lost loved ones. Just have some human decency, folks. Leave them alone. Don’t feed off their pain.”
Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and Dane County Executive Melissa Agard declined to answer a number of questions about whether the shooter was bullied, whether the school had a resource officer and the names of the victims, saying they can’t comment on the investigation.
Police Chief Shon Barnes left the news conference after delivering his remarks, leaving the mayor and county executive to field questions on their own.
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said it’s too early to comment on whether the shooter’s parents or anyone else should face criminal charges.
“We don’t know nearly enough yet,” she said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference.
“There is so much that we do not know and we have to allow law enforcement the time and space for a careful and methodical examination,” Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said.
Barnes spoke about the Abundant Life Christian Schools community during a Tuesday afternoon news conference about Monday’s deadly shooting.
And he said her motivation appears to have been a combination of factors.
Barnes said “everyone was targeted” during the attack.
“Again, we are working to authenticate the document that you see online that some are referring to as a manifesto,” he said Tuesday.
On Monday, he had said the call came from second grade student.
Her comments came during a speech to students in Maryland on Tuesday.
“Our nation mourns for those who were killed and we pray for the recovery of those who were injured,” she said.
Harris also called for stronger gun control laws.
“Solutions are in hand. But we need elected leaders to have the courage to step up and do the right thing.”
The news conference scheduled for 1 p.m. CST is to provide updates on the investigation into the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School that left two people dead as well as the shooter, 15-year-old student Natalie Rupnow.
Barnes is expected to field questions about Rupnow’s motivation and whether her parents might face charges.
A 14-year-old Mount Horeb student named Damian Haglund tried to break into his middle school on May 1 with an air rifle, prompting students to flee the building into surrounding neighborhoods. Haglund wasn’t able to enter the school and responding police shot and killed him after he refused to drop the weapon. No one else was injured during the incident.
Investigators found writings in Haglund’s journal entitled “Battle Plan,” dated Jan. 26, three months before the attack. He planned to tell his mother he was sick, steal a car, sneak into the school at lunch time, burn down the library and go after the popular kids, according to the documents. He then planned to escape and die, the documents said.
Investigators also discovered a message written on his bedroom wall in black marker that read: “Hi COPS! To the officer who has to shoot me: I’m sorry, its not your fault. don’t forget that.”
Police are trying to determine what led to the shooting. Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said officers were talking with the shooter’s father and other family members, who were cooperating, and searching the shooter’s home.
Barnes said officials don’t yet know if the victims were targeted.
Speaking on CNN, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said they’re trying to put together a timeline of the shooter’s last hours before she went to the school.
Barnes said they’ve asked the ATF to expedite determining the origin of the gun used in the shooting and how the 15-year-old got her hands on it. He said he’s not certain if the weapon was owned or possessed by her parents.
Asked if her parents could be charged with a crime, Barnes said they were voluntarily giving information, but he also wanted to look at whether the parents were negligent. But at this time, he said that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Two prominent cases of parents facing criminal charges after their children are accused in school shootings have come in Michigan and Georgia in recent years.
“Kathy and I join the people of Wisconsin in praying for the families and loved ones of those whose lives were so senselessly taken and for the educators, staff, and the entire Abundant Life school community as they grapple with the grief, trauma, and loss of this gut-wrenching tragedy,” Evers said in a statement. “We are also praying and hoping all those injured survive and recover.”
The governor’s order began Monday and and ends at sunset on Sunday.
The website for the anti-violence organization Everytown for Gun Safety shows that there have been at least 202 incidents of gunfire on school grounds, resulting in 56 deaths and 147 injuries, in 2024. That data doesn’t include the latest shooting in Madison.
The deadliest school shooting in 2024 happened in September at Apalachee High School in Georgia.
Last year, 45 people died in 158 school shootings, the Everytown for Gun Safety website shows. Sixty-seven people died in 181 school shootings in 2022, according to the data.
Firearms were the leading cause of death among children in 2020 and 2021, according to KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues.
The shooting comes less than two weeks after a gunman critically wounded two kindergartners at a tiny religious school in Northern California and then killed himself. Butte County Sheriff Kory L. Honea said the shooter was mentally ill and believed that by targeting children on Dec. 4 that he was carrying out “counter-measures” in response to America’s involvement in Middle East violence.
Litton, 56, gained entry to the Feather River School of Seventh-Day Adventists in Oroville, California, by pretending he wanted to enroll a fictitious grandson, Honea said. He used a handgun to shoot and critically wound two kindergarten boys, ages 5 and 6. Authorities said Litton was found dead afterward just yards (meters) from the school’s playground.
It was unclear why Feather River School was targeted.
Abundant Life Christian School is nondenominational and has about 420 students from pre-kindergarten through high school, according to Barbara Wiers, director of elementary and school relations for Abundant Life Christian School.
She said at a news briefing Monday afternoon that the school does not have metal detectors but uses other security measures including cameras. She also said guns are not allowed on campus and that the school regularly practices safety routines.
“When they heard ‘lockdown, lockdown,’ they knew it was real,” she said.
Wiers said just before the school year, they had done a retraining with the Madison Police Department, so it was “very fresh for faculty.”
The school asked for prayers in a post on its Facebook page on Monday.
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