A shooting at a school in Wisconsin left three people dead, including the suspected shooter, police said

A teenage student killed a classmate and a teacher at a Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin, on Monday, before police found the suspect dead at the scene of the latest shooting to devastate a US college campus, authorities said.

Police said that at least six other people were injured. Two students sustained life-threatening injuries; Four other people sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

The shooting occurred at Abundant Life Christian School, a private institution that teaches about 400 students from kindergarten through 12th grade.

Police said the shooter, who used a gun in the attack and was a student at the school, was found dead inside the school by officers, and none of the officers fired their weapons when they responded. The identity of the shooter has not been determined by age or gender.

The motive behind the violence, which the authorities said occurred in one place inside the school, is not yet known. Police said the shooter’s family is cooperating with the investigation.

Earlier, police said that five people were killed in the shooting, but later said that this information was incorrect.

“Today is a sad, sad day, not just for Madison, but for our entire country, as another police chief holds a press conference to talk about violence in our community,” Madison Police Chief Shawn Barnes told reporters.

Barnes added: “Every child, every person in this building, is a victim, and will be a victim forever. These types of traumas don’t go away easily.”

The police chief said the shooting occurred before 11 a.m. local time.

A video posted from the scene on social media showed a massive emergency response, including police, ambulances and fire engines.

Abundant Life Christian School wrote on its social media, “Prayer needed! Today, we had an active shooter incident at ALCS. We are in the midst of following up. We will share the information as we can.”

Members of a Facebook group for graduates of the school expressed their horror and prayed. Many people began organizing a campaign for donations and gift cards for employees and others affected by the attack.

“It is terrifying to see this happening in a safe space for so many of us,” Kristen Navis wrote. “I pray for everyone, the tragedy of a life lost in this way is almost incomprehensible.”

“We need to do a better job in our country and our community of preventing gun violence,” Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said at an afternoon news conference.

School shootings in recent years

Gun control and school safety have become major political and social issues in the United States, as the number of school shootings has jumped in recent years.

There have been 322 school shootings this year in the United States, according to the K-12 School Shootings Database website. That’s the second-highest total in any year since 1966, according to that database — surpassed only by last year’s total of 349 shootings.

An epidemic of shootings has struck both public and private schools in urban, suburban and rural communities.

Some of them occurred in Christian schools. In March 2023, a former student at Covenant School, a private academy in Nashville, killed three children and three adults before being fatally shot by law enforcement officers. Last month, two students, ages 5 and 6, were shot at Feather River Adventist School near Oroville, California, by a gunman who later died from his self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The White House said President Joe Biden has been briefed on the shooting, and that White House officials are in contact with local officials in Madison to provide any needed support.