Two people were killed and others were injured Monday in a shooting at a private Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin. Police said a student who opened fire, identified as a 15-year-old girl, was also dead.
The girl also wounded six others in the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School, including two students who were in critical condition, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said.
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“Kathy and I join the people of Wisconsin in praying for the families and loved ones of those whose lives were so senselessly taken and for the educators, staff, and the entire Abundant Life school community as they grapple with the grief, trauma, and loss of this gut-wrenching tragedy,” Evers said in a statement. “We are also praying and hoping all those injured survive and recover.”
The governor’s order began Monday and and ends at sunset on Sunday.
The website for the anti-violence organization Everytown for Gun Safety shows that there have been at least 202 incidents of gunfire on school grounds, resulting in 56 deaths and 147 injuries, in 2024. That data doesn’t include the latest shooting in Madison.
The deadliest school shooting in 2024 happened in September at Apalachee High School in Georgia.
Last year, 45 people died in 158 school shootings, the Everytown for Gun Safety website shows. Sixty-seven people died in 181 school shootings in 2022, according to the data.
Firearms were the leading cause of death among children in 2020 and 2021, according to KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues.
The shooting comes less than two weeks after a gunman critically wounded two kindergartners at a tiny religious school in Northern California and then killed himself. Butte County Sheriff Kory L. Honea said the shooter was mentally ill and believed that by targeting children on Dec. 4 that he was carrying out “counter-measures” in response to America’s involvement in Middle East violence.
Litton, 56, gained entry to the Feather River School of Seventh-Day Adventists in Oroville, California, by pretending he wanted to enroll a fictitious grandson, Honea said. He used a handgun to shoot and critically wound two kindergarten boys, ages 5 and 6. Authorities said Litton was found dead afterward just yards (meters) from the school’s playground.
It was unclear why Feather River School was targeted.
Abundant Life Christian School is nondenominational and has about 420 students from pre-kindergarten through high school, according to Barbara Wiers, director of elementary and school relations for Abundant Life Christian School.
She said at a news briefing Monday afternoon that the school does not have metal detectors but uses other security measures including cameras. She also said guns are not allowed on campus and that the school regularly practices safety routines.
“When they heard ‘lockdown, lockdown,’ they knew it was real,” she said.
Wiers said just before the school year, they had done a retraining with the Madison Police Department, so it was “very fresh for faculty.”
The school asked for prayers in a post on its Facebook page on Monday.