What we know so far about the shooting
- Three people are dead, including the shooter, after a shooting at Abundant Life Christian School, a Madison, Wisconsin, campus for grades K-12.
- A teacher and a teenage student were killed, police said.
- Police identified the suspected shooter as Natalie Rupnow, 15, who went by Samantha, a student at Abundant Life. Rupnow died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
- Six other people were injured. Two students are in critical condition, and a teacher and three other students had non-life-threatening injuries, officials said.
11-year-old leaves flowers for victims at vigil: ‘They deserve respect'
Reporting from Madison, Wisc.
Dressed against the Wisconsin cold, 11-year-old Sofia Cuahutepitzei and her sister dropped off flowers at crosses today at a vigil for yesterday’s deadly school shooting.
Sofia, who is in the sixth grade, attends a different public school from Abundant Life Christian School, but two close cousins go there.
“I just felt scared for them after I heard what was happening,” she said.
Sofia attended school today, because she wanted to be close to her friends. But she said many of her classmates were not sent to school.
She and her sister left the flowers to show they cared.
“They deserve respect, because teachers are everything to kids’ education. And the kid that was killed, in the shooting, they also had a future, a bright future ahead of them,” she said.
“They don’t deserve that, I think, to lose their life at such a young age,” she said.”
Vigil held for victims of shooting
Reporting from Madison, Wisc.
Hundreds of people are gathered in front of the State Capitol in Madison for a vigil honoring the victims.
Community members signed wooden crosses with messages for the victims of the shooting, whose names have not been made public. Organizers intend to try to deliver them to families through the school.
Multiple volunteer organizations with therapy dogs came in from around Wisconsin, as well as some from Illinois.
The vigil started with a moment of silence. Several people were crying as music played ahead of the night's speeches.
Wisconsin’s laws make it too easy for children to get guns, county official says
Dane County Executive Melissa Agard today criticized Wisconsin’s gun laws after the deadly shooting.
“Our laws in Wisconsin are far too lax when it comes to access of guns by children. And I do believe that we should have safe storage laws, we should have background checks, we should have red flag bills,” Agard said.
“We should be providing adequate support for everyone in our community when it comes to behavioral health,” she said. “People should not be waiting when they raise their hand and ask for help.”
Agard previously served five terms as a Democratic member of the Wisconsin Legislature.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is working on tracing the handgun that was used in the shooting, police have said.
Rep. Mark Pocan: 'We have to accept with a problem with guns in this country'
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., called on Congress this afternoon to act on gun reform after the shooting in his district yesterday. He called it a "uniquely American problem" and said the past 24 hours have been an "obviously tough moment."
"First, we have to accept we have a problem with guns in this country, and we do. No other country has the same problems with mass shootings like we do. Until we accept that, we’re going to work around the edges," he said.
Since yesterday's shooting, Pocan has been outspoken about his disappointment at Congress for not supporting gun reform legislation. He wrote in a post yesterday that "thoughts and prayers without action means more school shootings, more dead kids."
Sandy Hook Promise co-CEO says her heart is 'shattered'
Just two days before the shooting in Wisconsin, a co-founder and co-CEO of Sandy Hook Promise, Nicole Hockley, remembered the loss of her child in the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012. She said in a statement today that "my heart is shattered."
"I deeply feel for the surviving loved ones who now carry this unbearable pain, and for the community of Madison as it begins to grapple with this trauma during a season meant for joy and togetherness. No family or community should ever endure such unspeakable heartbreak," she wrote.
Hockley lost her son Dylan when he was 6 years old. Since then, she has been running her nonprofit group, which works to prevent acts of violence and end school shootings.
Madison mayor tells reporters it's 'none of y’all’s business who was harmed,' says, 'Have some human decency'
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway declined to share information about the victims and lashed out at reporters who expressed frustration over the lack of details.
“I don’t know how many times I have to say this: We will share good, factual information when we can. None of you is obliged to stay here, you’re free to leave, you don’t have to be sitting in this room if you don’t want to,” she said at a news conference. “We will share information when we can.
“I’m going to say this, and then we’re done,” she continued. “It is absolutely none of y’all’s business who was harmed in this incident. Please have some human decency and respect for the people who have lost loved ones or were injured themselves or whose children were injured. Just have some human decency, folks."
"Leave them alone," she said. "Let them grieve. Let them recover. Let them heal. Don’t feed off their pain. We’ll share what we can when we can and not before that.”
Rhodes-Conway said her first priority is respecting the victims’ privacy.
“These are folks have been deeply impacted by trauma and are grieving, and frankly, I think it should be up to them whether and if they want to share any personal identifying information with anyone at all,” she said. “But it’s not up to me, it’s a law enforcement decision, and so when law enforcement feels like that’s appropriate, they will share that information.”
Second grade teacher made 911 call, not student, police clarify
Barnes clarified that a second grade teacher called 911 during the shooting, not a student, as police said initially.
"That was a mistake. That's my responsibility, and I apologize and I clarify that today," he said at a news conference.
Madison schools targeted by swatting day after shooting
Numerous schools in the Madison Metropolitan School District were targeted by false threats, otherwise known as swatting, the day after the shooting, Barnes told reporters today.
"We do not believe that there are any current threats to any Madison area schools, and we will continue to investigate these calls and any threats of violence as they come in," he said.
Swatting occurs when false reports of violence are reported, leading to police responses when no crimes have occurred. He said police are working with the district attorney’s office to investigate the origin of the calls and take legal action as necessary.
Motive appears to have been 'a combination of factors,' police chief says
Barnes said that the motive behind the shooting appears to have been "a combination of factors."
Barnes said at an afternoon news conference that "identifying a motive is our top priority" but declined to provide further details, citing the ongoing investigation. He said, however, that investigators are speaking with students about reports of bullying.
"On the question of bullying, we’re talking to students to understand whether bullying was one of those multiple factors that I mentioned earlier," he said.
Barnes also addressed questions about whether the shooter was targeting a specific person. "Everyone was targeted in this incident, and everyone was put in equal danger," he said.
He said the shooting has left the community with "a flurry of emotion, sadness, anger, disappointment, grief."
"We are brought together by a tragedy,” he said.
Parent of student who knew family of deceased: 'My heart's breaking'
James and Rebekah Smith, parents of a 17-year-old junior who was taking a physics class down the hall when the shooting occurred, told NBC Newsthey know a lot of the people involved in the tragedy.
"My heart’s breaking," Rebekah Smith said. "I can't imagine what that would feel like."
She noted that Abundant Life Christian School has lockdowns and "train[s] every month for this."
Asked whether she wants to see more security at the school, she said: "Do we want our kids to think they're at a security checkpoint at an airport coming to school every day? That's a hard one to answer."
James Smith said he trusts the school and the administration to make decisions that are safe for all students and recognizes that it's going to take time.
"It's how we build from here, how we heal from this time as a community," he said. "There's going to be a lot of counsel needed for all involved, the whole community, just time to grieve, space to find out what all of this means for us and to be able to give grace to the family of the perpetrator."
Former principal of Abundant Life: 'My heart is broken with them'
David Wagner, who was principal of Abundant Life Christian School for 16 years until 1998, said “it was a shock” to learn about the shooting at the school he once led.
“My three kids went there, my wife taught there. … At first I thought it must be wrong. It must not be Abundant Life Christian School, my school in Madison," Wagner told NBC News.
"A shooting — it can be anywhere, it can be at a mall, it can be at a home — is a tragedy," he said. "But when it gets to your school, at your place, then all of a sudden you put names into the situation, you put faces into the situation, people that you know. That’s when it really hits home.
“It was unbelievable, just unbelievable. It just broke my heart to think about that,” he added.
Wagner said the school was a close-knit community when he led it. He said he hired the current principal and still knows teachers there.
He said that in his time leading the school, there was no protocol for shootings, as they weren’t as prevalent, and he called their proliferation “a tragedy in itself.”
“Leaving in 1998, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of a school shooting at that time. That was not part of our preparation or protocol,” he said. “We did all the fire drills, tornado drills and other safety drills. We worked together with the police department, the fire department, just to make sure that our building had all the necessary means for those kinds of situations.”
His message to the community is to “persevere” and “continue to hold their faith.”
“This is a tragic situation that will bring change to not only the school, but to everybody who is a part of that family,” Wagner said. “My heart is with you. I grieve. My heart is broken with them.” He urged community members to “wrap their hearts around those who need a hug and to share a word of encouragement to those around them.”
Flags in Wisconsin to be flown at half-staff, governor says
Flags will be flown at half-staff until Sunday at sunset, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said on X.
Evers said flags will be lowered to "honor those whose lives were taken and forever changed yesterday, pray for the full recoveries of those injured, and mourn with and support the Abundant Life Christian School community."
Less than 5% of school shooters in the past decade were female
Out of 544 school shootings over an 11-year period, less than 5% of the shooters were female, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit group that advocates for stronger gun laws. The group flagged that the shooter's gender is not always available, making the data incomplete.
MSNBC analyst Frank Figliuzzi, former assistant director of the FBI for counterintelligence, corroborated the statistic, telling MSNBC's Jose Diaz-Balart today that officials are trying to track the serial number of the gun that was used to determine where the suspected shooter got it.
He also said the FBI will be looking for flags indicating that such an event would occur.
“It's rare that there’s no clues or indicators, especially with a teenager,” Figliuzzi said.
Police to hold news conference this afternoon
Police will provide details about the shooting at a news conference scheduled for 1 p.m. local time, 2 p.m. ET.
'This great nation is behind us,' school says after shooting
Abundant Life Christian School said it has been "flooded with thoughts & prayers" following a shooting Monday at the school.
"This great nation is behind us. So grateful for the tsunami of prayers for our students, staff, & families," the school said in a Facebook statement on Monday night.
"Prayers Requested! Today, we had an active shooter incident at ALCS," the school said in an earlier statement. "Please pray for our Challenger Family."
The shooting happened during the last week of school before Christmas break, which was scheduled to begin on Dec. 23.
3 dead, 6 injured in Wisconsin elementary school mass shooting
A teacher and student are dead and six others are wounded after another student opened fire inside a study hall classroom at a Madison, Wisconsin, elementary school on Monday. The shooter, who died from what is believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, was a 15-year-old girl, police say. NBC’s Shaquille Brewster reports for TODAY.
Who is the shooter?
Police identified the suspected shooter as 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, who went by Samantha, a student at Abundant Life.
She died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said. She died en route to a hospital, the chief said. The county medical examiner will make an official determination of the cause and manner of death, he said.
Police said a motive was not clear.
Investigators have talked to the shooter’s family and searched the home, Barnes said. Her parents are “fully cooperating,” Barnes said.
A handgun was recovered, said Barnes, who did not provide additional details about it.
Who are the victims?
A teenage student and a teacher were fatally shot, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said. He has not provided additional details about them.
It was not clear if the student at teacher were targets, police said.
Two of the injured students are in critical condition, and four were recovering from non-life-threatening injuries, he said.
Where did the shooting happen?
Abundant Life Christian School is a private academy located east of downtown Madison. It was founded in 1978 and teaches kindergarten through 12th grade to roughly 335 students.
The shooting happened in a classroom during study hall, the chief said, adding that students in a variety of grade levels were in the room.
When did the shooting happen?
Authorities were dispatched to a report of an active shooter at Abundant Life Christian School, east of downtown Madison, at 10:57 a.m., Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said.
The 911 call was made from Abundant Life by a second-grade teacher, he said.
At the time of the shooting, Barnes said, officers had been training to respond to similar scenarios.
“So what began as a training day became an actual thing,” he said.