Teenage shooter kills student, teacher at Wisconsin school, police say
Police chief says shooter also found dead, was student at school
Six wounded and taken to hospitals, two with life-threatening injuries
US data show 322 school shootings this year
Adds Biden statement, background on previous school shootings, paragraphs 18-22
By Brad Brooks and Joseph Ax
Dec 16 (Reuters) -A teenage shooter killed a fellow student and a teacher at a Wisconsin school and wounded six others on Monday before police found the suspect dead at the scene in thelatest school shootingto devastate a U.S. community.
Police did not publicly identify any of the victims at the Abundant Life Christian School, a private institution that teaches some 400 students from kindergarten through 12th grade.
At least six other people were wounded, according to police. Two students had life-threatening injuries; four other people had injuries that were not life-threatening.
The shooter, a student at the schoolwho used a handgun, was found dead inside the school by officers who immediately entered campus upon arrival, police said. They declined to identify theshooter by name, age or gender.
No officers fired their weapons, police said.
There was as yet no known motive for the violence, which authorities said took place in one spaceinside the school. The shooter's family was cooperating with the investigation, police said.
Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes, a former public school history teacher, said the shooting took place just before 11 a.m. local time.
"Today is a sad, sad day, not only for Madison, but for our entire country, where yet another police chief is doing a press conference to speak about violence in our community," Barnes told reporters.
"Every child, every person in that building, is a victim, and will be a victim forever. These types of trauma don't just go away," Barnes said.
There have been 322 school shootings this year in the U.S., according to the K-12 School Shooting Database website. That is the second highest total of any year since 1966, according to that database - topped only by last year's total of 349 such shootings.
"We need to do better in our country and our community to prevent gun violence," Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway told the same press conference.
Members of a Facebook group for the school's alumni expressed horror and offered prayers. Several people began organizing a donation and gift card drive for staff members and others affected by the attack.
"It is horrifying watching this happen in a place that was safe for so many of us," one woman, Kristen Navis, wrote. "I am praying for all, the tragedy of life lost in this manner is almost incomprehensible."
Gun control and school safety have become major political and social issues in the U.S. where the number of school shootings has jumped in recent years.
The gun violenceepidemic has afflicted public and private schools alike in urban, suburban and rural communities.
Some have taken place in Christian schools, though far more have happened at public schools. In March 2023, a former student at Covenant School, a private academy in Nashville, Tennessee, killedthree children and three adults before being shot dead by law enforcement officers.
Earlier this month, two students aged 5 and 6 were shot and wounded at Feather River Adventist School near Oroville, California, by a gunman who later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
President Joe Biden called on Congress to enact gun-control legislation to prevent further massacres. Similar calls have gone unheeded after almost every school shooting in recent memory.
"It is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence. We cannot continue to accept it as normal," Biden said in a statement.
In 2022 Biden signed into law the first major federal gun reform in three decades, about a month after an 18-year-old man opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 students and two teachers.
The Wisconsin shooting took place 12 years and two days after one of the most notorious school shootings in U.S. history: the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. A 20-year-old man armed with a semiautomatic rifle killed 20 school children ages 6 and 7 plus six adults who worked at Sandy Hook school.
Polling shows American voters favor stronger background checks on gun buyers, temporary limits on people in crisis and more safety requirements for gun storage at homes with children. Yet political leaders have largely declined to act, citing the U.S. constitutional protection for gun owners.
Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado, Joseph Ax in Princeton, New Jersey, Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California, Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico, and Kanishka Singh and Nandita Bose in Washington; Writing by Brad Brooks and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Frank McGurty, Paul Thomasch and David Gregorio
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