Madison Confronts the Enormity of the Abundant Life Shooting

Frederica Freyberg:
Details continue to unfold following the devastating shooting inside a classroom at a Madison Christian school five days ago. According to the AP, a man in California has been ordered by a court there to turn in his weapons and ammunition after interacting with the 15-year-old shooter online about plotting a mass shooting with her. In Madison, two members of the school community were shot to death, and the 15-year-old took her own life, according to police. The teacher killed was 42-year-old Erin Michelle West. She was a substitute coordinator. The student who also died at the scene was 14-year-old Rubi Patricia Vergara. She was a freshman. “Here & Now” reporter Aditi Debnath has more on the aftermath of the violence.

Aditi Debnath:
A city mourned at a candlelight vigil outside the state Capitol coming together following the shocking violence on Monday at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison. That’s when a teenage girl shot and killed a fellow student, a teacher and then herself inside the school.

Man:
I pray…

Aditi Debnath:
Jackson Ida went to the vigil to support his friends at Abundant Life.

Jackson Ida:
It was just a whole range of like, worriedness and sadness and confusion.

Aditi Debnath:
Three dead, six wounded and hospitalized. Two of the victims suffering grave injuries. Executive director of the school system that manages Abundant Life, Chuck Moore, was at the vigil.

Chuck Moore:
Please pray for the two that are still in the hospital. It’s life threatening and they may not survive.

Aditi Debnath:
Police are still piecing together what happened.

Shon Barnes:
The first officers arrived at 11 a.m. and immediately went in the building.

Aditi Debnath:
After determining the shooter had taken her own life and transporting the injured to a hospital, police prioritized reunifying students and teachers with their families. Eight miles away, police served a search warrant at the shooter’s family home looking for evidence.

Dane Zogbaum:
They kind of all just swarmed right across the street to where it happened.

Aditi Debnath:
Police identified the shooter as Natalie Rupnow, a 15-year-old student at Abundant Life.

Barbara Wiers:
We’re a small, private Christian school here on the east side of Madison.

Aditi Debnath:
Barbara Wiers is an administrator at Abundant Life. She shared details about the school’s security measures, which include security cameras and regular lockdown drills.

Barbara Wiers:
When they heard lockdown, lockdown and nothing else, they knew it was real.

Aditi Debnath:
Abundant Life has been closed since the shooting. Neighbor Mackenzie Truitt visited the school to add a poinsettia plant to a sidewalk memorial honoring the victims of the shooting.

Mackenzie Truitt:
My younger brother went there. I have a lot of friends, family friends that go there as well.

Aditi Debnath:
Truitt says her brother knows the victims personally.

Mackenzie Truitt:
It affects everybody. I mean, when you go through a trauma like this, it’s horrible even if you weren’t directly impacted, it still causes a lot of harm to you mentally just knowing what other people are going through.

Aditi Debnath:
The rest of Madison schools stayed open, but some were placed on a brief, secure hold after receiving hoax threats. The Madison School District superintendent told those gathered at the vigil that prevention of future school violence goes beyond physical security.

Joe Gothard:
I think it’d be easy to say that we’re going to work on safety. We’re going to work on creating safe schools, and I don’t think that goes far enough because we know what many of those things are. What I plead to you tonight is that we find a new way, a deeper way, a more meaningful way to connect with our community, children to children, children to staff, families to families.

Aditi Debnath:
For Jackson Ida, school safety is key to empowering youth and preventing violence.

Jackson Ida:
I mean, the whole point of all of this is to be able to go and to get education so you can become the people who will hopefully be able to make this never happen again in the future.

Aditi Debnath:
Reporting from Madison, I’m Aditi Debnath for “Here & Now.”