Wisconsin school shooter only used 1 of 2 guns on her, police chief says

The Wisconsin religious school shooter had two guns with her, but only used one the attack that killed a teacher and a student and injured six others, the city’s police chief told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Police were still investigating why the 15-year-old student at Abundant Life Christian Christian School in Madison shot and killed a classmate and teacher Monday before shooting himself, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said.

Two other students who were shot remained in critical condition Wednesday.

“We may never know what he was thinking that day, but we will do our best to try to add or give as much information to our audience as possible,” Barnes said.

The student who died was identified in an obituary released Wednesday as Rubi Patricia Vergara, 14, of Madison. She was a freshman and “an avid reader, loved art, sang and played keyboard in the family worship band,” according to the obituary.

The name of the slain teacher has not been released.

Barnes released the shooter’s name, Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, hours after Monday’s shooting.

Barnes said the medical examiner would release the names of the dead, but state law prohibits releasing the names of the injured.

Police, with the help of the FBI, were searching online records and other resources and talking to the assailant’s parents and classmates to try to determine a motive, Barnes said.

Police do not know if anyone was targeted or if the attack was planned in advance, he said.

Although Rupnow had two guns, Barnes said he did not know how he obtained them and declined to say who bought them, citing the ongoing investigation.

No decisions have been made on whether Rupnow’s parents could face charges in connection with the shooting, but they have been cooperating, Barnes said.

Online court records show no criminal charges against her father, Jeffrey Rupnow, or her mother, Mellissa Rupnow. They are divorced and share custody of their daughter, but she lived primarily with her father, according to court documents. Divorce records indicate Natalie was in therapy in 2022, but don’t say why.

Female shooters are rare

The shooting was the latest of dozens across the United States in recent years, including particularly deadly ones in Newtown, Conn.; Parkland, Florida; and Uvalde, Texas.

But Madison’s attack is an outlier, as only about three percent of all mass shootings in the United States are perpetrated by women, studies show.

School shootings have become an almost daily occurrence in the United States, with 322 of them this year, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. That’s the second-highest total in any year since 1966, surpassed only by last year’s 349.

School shootings by teenagers have been extremely rare in the United States, with males in their teens and 20s carrying out the majority, said David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shootings Database .

Emily Salisbury, associate professor of social work at the University of Utah, studies criminology and gender. She said women often turn their anger on themselves because American culture has taught them that women don’t hurt people, leading to eating disorders, self-harm and depression.

It’s hard to speculate without knowing all the facts in Rupnow’s case, Salisbury said, but a girl resorting to the level of violence she displayed suggests she suffered severe trauma or was self-inflicted.

“There needs to be more provocation, more instigation for girls and women to become violent,” Salisbury said. “It is a very high probability that he has experienced some form of violence in his life that can lead to serious mental illness.”

Abundant Life is a nondenominational Christian school (preschool through high school) with approximately 420 students.

Salisbury said the public should not assume the school’s religious teachings mean its students are above bullying and ostracizing each other.

“They’re kids,” Salisbury said. “As much as these (religious) values ​​may be taught or discussed in the classroom in the culture of this school, kids are online all the time. Kids create their own culture through social media.”