Still reeling from Monday’s shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wis., residents held a candlelight vigil at the state Capitol on Tuesday evening to try to come to grips with a tragedy that left three people dead and has upended the lives of many more.
“I think all of our students and educators are feeling scared and vulnerable right now,” Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said at an afternoon press conference. “We are also trying to care for our whole community, because I believe we are all fearful, grieving and impacted.”
Held at the state Capitol, the vigil began at 6 p.m. local time. It brought together a community struggling to explain what may have caused 15-year-old suspect Natalie Rupnow, who went by the name Samantha, to bring a handgun on Monday to the K-12 school of approximately 390 students and open fire in a study hall.
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“Everyone was targeted in this incident, and everyone was put in equal danger,” Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said at Tuesday’s press conference.
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is also helping Madison police try to determine how the student obtained the gun used in Monday’s shooting. That and other questions remain.
“Identifying a motive is our top priority,” Barnes said. “But at this time, it appears that the motive was a combination of factors.”
Citing the ongoing status of the investigation, Barnes declined to share further details about what police have learned so far, but cautioned people to avoid circulating information about a purported manifesto left behind by the suspect.
“At this time we cannot verify the document. We ask that you not share the document or spread any information that may be false,” Barnes said.
Rhodes-Conway echoed Barnes, asking the public and the media to “avoid spreading misinformation, particularly via social media.”
“There is so much we do not know at this point and we have to allow law enforcement the time and space for a careful and methodological investigation,” she said.
Barnes also clarified that police had received the initial 911 call from a second-grade teacher at Abundant Life Christian School, a K-12 academy with approximately 390 students, at 10:57 a.m. CT, rather than from a second-grade student, as he had stated late Monday.
A deputy from the Dane County Sheriff’s Office was the first to arrive on the scene at 11 a.m. The first Madison police officer arrived 24 seconds later and immediately entered the school. Inside, police found multiple gunshot victims, including the suspect, who died in transit to a hospital of what police said was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“A teacher and a teenage student were pronounced dead at the scene at that school,” Barnes told reporters Monday. “Six other students and a teacher were injured and taken to area hospitals. Two students remain in critical condition and have 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 the hospital.
“At this time we believe there was only one shooter involved,” Barnes said.
At an earlier press conference, police said they had recovered the weapon used in the shooting, which Barnes said took place in a classroom study hall made up of “students of mixed grades.”
Attendees sign crosses during the candlelight vigil outside the state Capitol. (Morry Gash/AP)
The suspect
The family of the suspect has been cooperating with police, said Barnes, who added Tuesday that police were examining Rupnow’s social media activity leading up to Monday’s shooting.
“There are always signs of a school shooting before it occurred. Some of you have reached out about Rupnow’s social media activity prior to yesterday’s shooting,” Barnes said. “We’re looking into her online activity. We’re asking anyone who knew her, or who may have insights into her feelings leading up to yesterday, to please contact the Madison Area Crime Stoppers.”
Barnes said Monday that nothing “suggested that the school was a place where violence would occur” and added that he was not aware of any prior contact the suspect may have had with police.
“Everyone wants to know what led up to this,” Barnes said. “Are there any additional threats to public safety? Is this person, or was this person, by themselves? There are a lot of questions that we want to answer, but we have to answer the safety questions first.”
Barnes said the evidence suggests that Rupnow died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound but that an official cause of death would be determined by a medical examiner.
Asked how Rupnow had procured the gun used in the shooting, Barnes said, “That’s something that will be a part of this investigation.”
People hold candles at the vigil. (Morry Gash/AP)
Anxious moments for parents
Police evacuated students from the school before transporting them by bus to a nearby health clinic that acted 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 popping,” the Washington Post reported.
Waiting to be reunited with her 12-year-old son, Viktoriya Gonzales, told the New York Times that she learned he was safe but that he had been “severely traumatized, because he was right by the shooter.”
‘This should never happen’
In a nation that has already recorded more than 300 school shootings in 2024, the mood among the officials at Monday’s press conference was of disbelief that the trend had finally come to Madison.
“I’m feeling a little dismayed 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 am on record that I think we need to do better in our country and our community to prevent gun violence. And I hoped that this day would never come in Madison,” Rhodes-Conway said at the press conference. “It is not something that any mayor, any fire chief, any police chief, any person in public office ever wants to have to deal with.”
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers ordered flags in the state to be flown at half-staff until Dec. 22 in honor of the victims.
“It is unthinkable that a kid or an educator might 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 foregone reality or stop working to change it.”
In a statement, President Biden called the latest school shooting “shocking and unconscionable” and urged Congress to pass universal background checks for firearm purchases, a national red flag law and a ban on assault weapons.
“From Newtown to Uvalde, Parkland to Madison, to so many other shootings that don’t receive attention — it is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence,” Biden said.
Training day
Barnes noted Monday that police had been conducting a school shooting training exercise 3 miles from Abundant Life Christian School when the 911 call was received. “What began as a training day became an actual 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 response: “All I can tell you is that we have systems in place so that if something happens, we can respond like we did today.”
“I think you’re asking me how can I say 100% that no child will ever be harmed in school? I can’t. No police chief can,” Barnes said.
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