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Wisconsin school shooting: Suspect identified as gun-toting 15-year-old girl, police say it ‘truly is a sad day’
The suspect died before allegedly gunning down a teen pupil and a teacher, and injuring six more people at Abundant Life Christian School.
Police said that a female teen, 15, was the suspect in a shooting at a Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin, on Monday morning, December 16. The student allegedly shot dead a teen pupil and a teacher, and injured six more people, including two students who were left with “life-threatening” wounds, authorities said, according to New York Post. Among the other four who were injured were three students and a teacher, and two of them have already been released from the hospital.
The teen shooter, who authorities said was in attendance at the school before opening fire, was also found dead at the scene, officials and law-enforcement sources told The Associated Press. While one of the two victims who lost their lives was already dead when authorities arrived, the other died on the way to the hospital.
The shooting occurred just before 11 am local time at Abundant Life Christian School, which is a K-12 facility with about 400 students. Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes has said that authorities reached the school within three minutes of receiving a 911 call about an active shooter.
‘Today truly is a sad day for Madison and for our country’
“We know it was confined to one space,” he said of the shooting. “I don’t know if it was a classroom or a hallway.”
Barnes added that the motive behind the shooting remains unclear, but the suspect’s family is “cooperating” with law enforcement. He added that there were no clear warning signs that “suggested violence would occur” at the school. “We do not know that the shooter had any prior contact with law enforcement,” he said. “ Many of you have asked me about the ‘why’ of this. Why did this happen? … What was the motivation? I do not know.”
Barnes said that the school appeared to be divided into sections by age groups. “There’s no evidence anyone was injured who was not in the age group,” he said, which means those who were wounded might be teens or teens and their teachers.
“ Today truly is a sad day for Madison and for our country,” Barnes said. “It is a day that I believe will live in our collective minds for a very, very long time.”
Police said they did not fire their weapons at the shooter. “ We know that this was the middle of the day, of a school day, and so there will be other injuries that we’ll have to face for a very, very long time,” Barnes said. ”We’re going to do everything we can as a community to heal those injuries as well.”
Parents have been reunited with their kids following the tragedy. School official Barbara Wiers said the incident “rocked our school community.” She added that the school does not have metal detectors or a school resource officer. However, other security measures, like visual scanning, are in place, she said.
