Local officials in Wisconsin, United States on Tuesday (Dec 17) said the motive is still unclear for the 15-year-old girl who opened fire in a classroom at her private Christian school, killing a fellow student and a teacher before taking her own life.
The shooter, identified by police as Natalie Rupnow, who also went by Samantha, was a student at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, the state capital.
WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news
SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar
LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline
The shooter, identified by police as Natalie Rupnow, who also went by Samantha, was a student at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, the state capital.
WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news
SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar
LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00The past 24 hours have been a flurry of emotion, sadness, anger, disappointment, grief for
00:19the Madison community.
00:22There are always signs of a school shooting before it occurred.
00:26Some of you have reached out about Rupnow's social media activity prior to yesterday's
00:32shooting.
00:33We are looking into her online activity.
00:36We are asking anyone who knew her or who may have insights into her feelings leading up
00:43to yesterday to please contact the Madison area Crime Stoppers.
00:48On the question of bullying, we are talking to students to understand whether bullying
00:53was one of those multiple factors that I mentioned earlier.
00:58Some have asked if people were specifically targeted.
01:02Everyone was targeted in this incident and everyone was put in equal danger.
01:10Today numerous MMSD schools were targeted by false threats, often known as swatting.
01:19We're working closely with the Madison Metropolitan School District to determine where these originated
01:25and to investigate this call.
01:28We do not believe that there are any current threats to any Madison area schools and will
01:32continue to investigate these calls and any threats of violence as they come in.
01:38As a community, we must not allow violence or any act of violence to define us.
01:45We refuse to allow hate or destruction to win in this city, but rather we will honor
01:57our survivors, our victims through love, support, and the Madison way.
02:06If there's any positive in it, it's that the educators at Abundant Life, our local law
02:13enforcement and first responders, and our community partners were prepared to respond.
02:20They acted without hesitation to protect our children, and I'm grateful and humbled by
02:26their actions.
02:28It's a day that I hoped never would come to our city, but like so many other communities,
02:37here we are.
02:38There is so much that we do not know at this point, and we have to allow law enforcement
02:45the time and space for a careful and methodological investigation.
02:51Let them do their jobs.
02:54And above all, please respect the victims, respect the families, respect the school community,
03:03particularly on social media.