Natalie Rupnow: Abundant Life Christian School, Wisconsin teen shooter identified

The identity of a 15-year-old girl who opened fire at a Wisconsin school, killing a teacher and another student before turning the gun on herself, has been revealed.

Natalie Rupnow, also known as Samantha, has been named as the teen behind the fatal school shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison.

Police were called to the school just before 11am on Monday after reports of an active shooter.

On arrival, emergency services discovered a teacher and a student dead, along with Natalie’s body which had self-inflicted gun wounds.

Six people were rushed to hospital.

Two students who were wounded in the shooting had life-threatening injuries, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes told a press conference. A teacher and three other students were shot and expected to survive.

Natalie was a student at Abundant Life Christian School, a private institution that teaches some 400 students from kindergarten through 12th grade in Madison, the state capital of about 270,000 people.

A school shooting carried out by a girl remains a rarity, with only about three per cent of all US mass shootings perpetrated by females, studies show.

There was as yet no known motive for the violence, which authorities said took place in one space inside the school. The shooter’s family was cooperating with the investigation, police said.

“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, a former school teacher, told reporters at an earlier press conference.

“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.

- With Reuters