Police identify 15-year-old female student as the shooter at a school in the US state of Wisconsin

The Madison Police Department in Wisconsin has identified Natalie Rupnow, who went by the name ‘Samantha’, as the shooter in Monday night’s attack on Abundant Life Christian School.

Madison PD chief Shon Barnes say Natalie Rupnow was a 15-year-old female student at the school.

The shooting occurred in a study hall and was reported to police by a second grader. Barnes says a police car arrived at the school within minutes of the report.

A teacher and a teenager were killed as Natalie opened fire at a crowd of students. Six other students were also injured during the attacks.

Ambulances arrived shortly after police officers responded to the scene, and transported the wounded students and faculty to nearby hospitals.

Two students sustained critical injuries and are being treated at the hospital’s intensive care units. Three other students and a teacher suffered less serious injuries and two of them were released only hours after admittance to the hospital.

The motives behind the attack remain unclear. Detectives are carrying out an investigation into the incident to identify a motive.

Barnes says the Natalie’s parents have been brought in for questioning, and officers are conducting a search of their home in hopes of locating any clues.

“The parents are fully cooperating, we have no reason to believe that they have committed a crime at this time,” said Barnes as he spoke in a press briefing to provide updates on the attack.

Barnes added that Natalie Rupnow’s father “lost someone as well. And so, we're not going to rush the information. We'll take our time and make sure that we do our due diligence in doing that.”

The K-12 school shooting database keeps record of all gun related violent attacks in schoold across the United States. Their data reflect that in 2024 alone there were 323 isolated school shootings in the country. The highest figure was recorded last year standing at 349 attacks.