A 15-year-old girl has been identified as the shooter who killed a fellow student and a teacher at a school in Wisconsin on Monday.
A child in year two called emergency services shortly before 11am when the suspect, named as student Natalie Rupnow, began firing a handgun inside a classroom at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison.
Three people died, including the shooter who turned the weapon on herself, while six others were injured. Two of the wounded students remained in a critical condition in hospital on Monday night.
Rupnow’s motives remained unclear, Madison police chief Shon Barnes said late Monday, adding that her parents were cooperating with the investigation into how she accessed the weapon.
“We have no reason to believe that they have committed a crime at this time,” Chief Barnes said, adding that Rupnow’s father had attended the station.
“[Police are] trying to determine what he may knew [sic] or may have not known about what happened today, but again, he lost someone as well.”
Rupnow, who preferred to be called by the name ‘Samantha’, was not previously known to police.
One law enforcement source told CNN that investigators had received information that the shooter had written about problems that she had experienced, and that she may have planned the attack.
Chief Barnes said police were investigating the authenticity of a supposed ‘manifesto’ shared online.
“We’re certainly aware that it’s been posted and the person who posted it, alleged to have a connection with the victim,” he said.
The school has about 390 students, from kindergarten through high school, according to its website. It does not have metal detectors, a safety feature many American schools have installed following dozens of deadly campus shootings across the US in recent years.
As doctors worked to save the lives of the other wounded victims, anguished parents grappled with how to comfort their children who were left visibly shaken as they recalled the moment they heard shots fired in the middle of their lessons.
“Some people started crying, we just waited until the police came and they escorted us out,” one boy told a local TV station.
“We went to the side of the building. We went to the church after they got us.”
Chief Barnes said “every child, every person in that building is a victim and will be a victim forever”.
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“Those types of trauma don’t go away,” he said. “Right now my heart is heavy for my community and we have to figure out what happened here and it doesn’t happen in any other place that should be a refuge for students.”
Joe Biden, the US President, immediately denounced the “shocking and unconscionable” violence.
“It is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence,” Mr Biden said in a statement.
“We cannot continue to accept it as normal. Every child deserves to feel safe in their classroom.
“Students across our country should be learning how to read and write – not having to learn how to duck and cover.”
He again called on Congress to pass universal background checks, a national red flag law and increased gun restrictions.
“We can never accept senseless violence that traumatises children, their families, and tears entire communities apart,” Mr Biden said.
Satya Rhodes-Conway, the mayor of Madison, also said the country needed to do more to prevent gun violence.
“I hoped that this day would never come to Madison,” Ms Rhodes-Conway said.
Tony Evers, the Wisconsin Governor, directed flags to be lowered to half-mast across the state to honour the people “senselessly taken in this tragedy”.
