In the final week before the Christmas break, a high school student opened fire at a private Christian school in Madison, Wis., killing a teacher and a classmate, and injuring six others.
The Monday morning shooting at the nondenominational Abundant Life Christian School, which serves grades K-12, has left the school community reeling. Six other people were transported to area hospitals to be treated, including two students who have sustained “life-threatening” injuries, said Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes at a press conference.
The suspected shooter, a teenage student at the school, was found dead when the police arrived at the scene, and police officers were not required to fire their weapons. “At this time, we are not releasing the age or gender or any other identifying marks about the shooter,” Barnes said, although the Associated Press is reporting the shooter was a 17-year-old girl.
The names and ages of the victims have not yet been released.
“Today truly is a sad day in Madison and for our country. It is a day that I believe will live in our collective lives for a very, very long time,” Barnes said, as he addressed the media alongside other local officials.
This is the 39th school shooting that has resulted in injuries and deaths in 2024, according to an Education Week analysis. There have been 221 such shootings since EdWeek began tracking such data in 2018. Prior to Monday’s shooting, 16 people had been killed in shootings at schools this year.
At an evening update for media, Barbara Wiers, an administrator at the school, said the shooting “has obviously rocked our school community.”
She said the school serves 420 K-12 students. The building does not have metal detectors but uses other security measures including cameras and a locked main entrance during the school day. Wiers said both students and staff train for school safety scenarios and that the staff had done a retraining as recently as this summer with the Madison police.
Barnes said police detectives are investigating the potential motive behind the shooting by interviewing those who may have been witnesses and obtaining search warrants to get additional information. Police are currently in contact with the shooter’s family, who is “cooperating” with law enforcement.
The suspected teenage student used a “handgun” to carry out the shooting, Barnes said. The shooting was confined to “one area,” he added, though Barnes didn’t specify if it was a classroom or other area of the school.
Chris Carbon, the local fire chief, said at the press conference that “his heart was with, and arms around” everybody affected by the shooting. The fire department, within the space of 15 minutes, transported seven patients from the school to area hospitals.
The police said they were prepared because of quarterly drills
Abundant Life did not have a school resource officer, Barnes said, and he was not sure if the school used any kind of physical measures to identify potential threats, like a metal detector.
Private schools, generally, do not have to follow the same mandates as public schools when it comes to safety measures meant to deter weapons in schools.
The officers followed protocol when they arrived at the scene, Barnes said: “They immediately go in, which we did in this case, stop the threat, stop the killing, find the killer. That’s how we train, and that’s exactly what we did today.
“There’s no waiting, there’s no coordination of who’s in charge,” he added. “We train on this constantly. Our commanders, including the fire chief and I, were in a commander’s training less than two weeks ago, going over this exact same scenario for another fictional location.”
Special event team medics who work with the fire department were undergoing a training on similar situations at a training facility three miles from the school. They ended up responding to the real-time shooting at Abundant Life in the midst of their training, said Barnes.
In a statement, President Joe Biden condemned the shooting in Madison, stating that students should be learning how to “read and write” instead of learning how to “duck and cover.”
Students need to be protected from the “scourge of gun violence,” he added. “Congress must pass commonsense gun safety laws: Universal background checks. A national red flag law. A ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”
School shootings have long-lasting effects
The surrounding public schools in Madison and the suburb of Monona temporarily implemented extra security measures on Monday, according to the Associated Press, although the police clarified that there were no threats to any other schools in the area. The Madison district has listed grief counseling and mental health resources for students, staff, and families.
While school shootings that lead to injury or death remain statistically rare, these incidents have a long-lasting emotional, psychological, and financial impact on schools. Schools have to help students overcome the trauma from a shooting, and also enhance security measures to help students and staff feel safe.
Members of the Principal Recovery Network, a national advocacy group made up of school leaders who have witnessed or survived gun violence in their school, have made consistent appeals to Congress on a range of issues like promoting firearm safety and more federal dollars to reinforce mental health support for their students and staff.
“My heart is breaking for the victims and families of Abundant Life Christian School. I want to emphasize that healing after a school shooting is a long and complex process. The school community needs immediate and ongoing mental health support for students, staff, and families,” said Elizabeth Brown, a member of the Principal Recovery Network and the principal of Forest High School in Ocali, Fla., where in 2018, a student opened fire and severely injured another student in the school.
“Recovery is not a sprint, but a marathon, and this school will need our help for years to come,” she added.
