Figuring out a motive behind the Monday college taking pictures in Madison, Wisconsin, that killed three individuals, together with the 15-year-old assailant, stays a “prime precedence,” authorities mentioned Tuesday, noting that they’re “working to authenticate” a purported manifesto circulating on-line.
“It seems that the motive was a mixture of things,” with bullying among the many angles being investigated, Madison Police Division Chief Shon Barnes mentioned at a press convention following the incident at Ample Life Christian Faculty.
“We’re trying into her on-line exercise,” he mentioned of the shooter, recognized as scholar Natalie Rupnow. Barnes added, “We’re asking anybody who knew her or who could have insights into her emotions main as much as yesterday to please contact the Madison Space Crime Stoppers” — a nonprofit that seeks crime-solving suggestions.
He mentioned the taking pictures — which wounded six different individuals, two of whom remained in vital situation Tuesday — left the neighborhood with “a flurry of emotion: disappointment, anger, disappointment, grief.”
“Three households awoke this morning to a world with no cherished one,” he mentioned.
Police mentioned Rupnow, who glided by the primary title Samantha, died of an obvious self-inflicted gunshot wound after fatally taking pictures a trainer and one other teen scholar. Addressing whether or not people had been “particularly focused” within the assault, Barnes mentioned that “everybody was put in equal hazard.”
He additionally clarified {that a} 911 name positioned through the rampage — earlier attributed to a second grade scholar — was truly positioned by a second grade trainer.
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, additionally talking on the press convention, declined to publicly establish the victims when requested, telling reporters their family members want time and house to grieve.
“It’s completely none of y’all’s enterprise who was harmed on this incident,” she mentioned. “Please, have some human decency and respect for the individuals who misplaced family members or had been injured themselves or whose youngsters had been injured.”
Barnes described the assailant’s dad and mom as “cooperating” with regulation enforcement. It’s “far too early” to say whether or not they could face associated felony expenses, mentioned Rhodes-Conway.
“We don’t know almost sufficient but,” she mentioned.
In the meantime, the neighborhood is struggling.
Scott Olson by way of Getty Photos
On Tuesday, “quite a few” faculties inside the Madison Metropolitan Faculty District had been the goal of false threats, “usually often called swatting,” Barnes mentioned.
“We don’t imagine that there are any present threats to any Madison-area faculties and can proceed to analyze these calls and any threats of violence as they arrive in,” he mentioned.
Dane County Govt Melissa Agard recommended college students and lecturers who returned to high school Tuesday, calling it “an act of bravery.”
“Mother and father dropping their youngsters off after what we witnessed yesterday took an act of bravery and a perception in our neighborhood,” she informed reporters. “And that’s a bravery we must always not must placed on the shoulders of our youngsters and our households and our neighborhood.”
Agard mentioned her personal son attends college within the district and that he discovered it “laborious … to stand up and go to high school in the present day.” Then when he did, his college was positioned underneath lockdown amid swatting within the district, which she mentioned was “triggering not solely to him and his friends, however to relations and educators.”
“Gun violence is the No. 1 killer of youngsters on this nation. That’s a legacy we can’t settle for,” she mentioned. “A part of the rationale I really feel so pained by this tragedy is that mass shootings really feel like one thing that’s ominous and hovering, and we’re all questioning the place and when the subsequent one goes to happen. And guess what — it occurred right here.”
We Want Your Assist
Assist JHB
Already contributed? Log in to cover these messages.
Agard went on to name state legal guidelines “too lax on the subject of entry of weapons by youngsters.”
“I do imagine that we must always have protected storage legal guidelines,” she mentioned. “We should always have background checks. We should always have crimson flag payments. We needs to be offering ample help for everybody in our neighborhood on the subject of behavioral well being. Folks shouldn’t be ready once they increase their hand and ask for assist.”