Transcript of Police ID female student as Wisconsin school shooter

We are getting a live update on today's school shooting.

And includes some new information that was not available earlier as I promised. The Madison Police Department responded to a mass shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School, today. Officers were dispatched to the school, which is located on the city's east side at 10:57 AM. They arrived to find multiple people, suffering from gunshot wounds. 3 people, including the shooter, are dead.

The shooter has now been identified as 15 year old Natalie Rupnow who went by the name Samantha. She was a student at the school, and evidence suggests she died from a self inflicted gunshot wound. The official cause of death will be released by the Dane County medical examiner pending the conclusion of their examination. She was pronounced deceased while in transport to a local hospital. A teacher and a teenage student were pronounced dead at the scene, at that school.

6 other students and a teacher were injured and taken to area hospitals. 2 students remain in critical condition and have life threatening injuries. A teacher and 3 students were treated for nonlife threatening injuries. 2 of these, have been released and discharged from the hospital. The other 2 survivors are considered to be in stable condition.

At this time, we believe there was only 1 shooter involved. We'll still we are still working to determine a motive. Detectives have talked to her family members this evening as well as conduct a search of the shooter's home here in Madison. The shooting happened inside a classroom in a study hall of students from mixed grades. A document about this shooting is circulating this time on social media, but we have not verified its authenticity.

The Abundant Life Christian School is being monitored by police overnight. At this time, no 1 is allowed inside or on the school property. The Madison Police Department is aware that people are hoping to hold a vigil at the school tonight. We're asking you not to do that as this is still as this location is still an active crime scene. So I'm gonna go over the timeline of events for you.

At 10:57 AM, a second grade student called 911 to report a shooting had occurred at school. Now let that soak in for a minute. A second grade student called 911 at 10:57 AM to report a shooting at school. Officers were dispatched to the school at 10:57. A deputy with the Dane County Sheriff's Office was the 1st officer to arrive on the scene at 11 AM.

24 seconds later, the first Madison police officer arrived on the scene at 11:01 and immediately entered the school. Officers bravely entered the building as soon as they arrived, not knowing what they were going to encounter. At 110:5, officers inside the school alerted people that the shooter was down and that a gun had been recovered at 110:5. The Madison Police Department also began setting setting up for parents and guardians and what we briefly described earlier for you as a, reunification center, that occurred at 11:05. The Madison Fire Department was dispatched to the scene.

At the same time, they arrived at 11:05 and began, linking up with officers who were also inside, and they were have, instrumental. We're providing aid to victims who were suffering from gunshot wounds, potentially saving lives. The first public notice about the shooting was posted on the Madison Police Department incident report website at 11:13 AM. Officers began clearing the school building at 11:14 and bomb dogs started to clear the facility at 11:23 AM. The Madison Fire Department began transporting patients at 11:26.

Again, we want to stress that EMS arrived on the scene at 110:5, immediately connecting with officers to enter the scene, not knowing what they were what they were going to, experience. Press briefings occurred at 12:15, 12:30, 5:30, and now at 8:30 PM Central Standard Time. Let's talk a little bit about our law enforcement and our community partners. Multiple agencies assisted with the response to the shooting, the Madison Fire Department, and several other Dane County and EMS agencies, the Dane County Sheriff's Office, the University of Wisconsin Police Department, the FBI, the ATF, all have played major roles in our response and in our investigation. We also want to acknowledge UW Hospital as well as Saint Mary's Hospital for their work in treating the survivors of today's school shooting.

Community resources. There are resources available to anyone needing help or needing someone to talk to. The crime response unit with the Dane County District Attorney's Office have been mobilized. This is a group of people who are trained to help victims of mass violent incidents. This group is made up of social workers, attorneys, victims, professionals, formal law enforcement, and other stakeholders in our community.

If you need assistance, you can contact the crime response program between 8 and 5 during the daytime. I'll give that number again, 608-284 6908, and you can reach them after hours at 608-3736-0164. 608-376-0164 after hours. The Wisconsin Department of Justice's Office of School Safety and Office of Crime Victim Services are also providing resources during this critical time. Their critical incident response team program is designed to minimize the psychological impact of a school critical incident and helps to provide long term mental care long after this is over.

And I don't know how we can minimize what has happened today, but we're gonna do the best we can to provide services for all these children and staff. We cannot forget the staff, who bravely bravely took care of of their students, during this harrowing time. We also wanna thank employees of the Dane County I'm sorry, of Dean Healthcare, which we spoke about before. Again, the clinic shut down for the day, and employees assisted with our unification process. We've also seen an outpouring of support from various community groups and businesses, Twisted Ground Coffee, Greenbush Bakery, Ann's Pizza, Culver's, Mission Barbecue, Starbucks,

and all that stuff. To the Madison police chief Sean Barnes giving an update to reporters, the 4th 1 of the day on the school shooting that happened today in Madison, Wisconsin. A few headlines that we got from him there, including it was a 2nd grade student who called 911 at 10:57 AM this morning, local time, to report a school shooting was happening at the Abundant Life Christian School. That student called at 10:57. By 11:05, police were on the scene, and the shooter was down.

We have now learned from authorities for the first time confirming the name of that school shooter that was 15 years old. Her name was Samantha Rapnow, Natalie Rapnow, but she went by Samantha. She was 15 years old, not 17. As previously reported, she died of a self inflicted gunshot wound at the scene. So, of course, 2 others were also killed at that shooting today earlier.

We have heard that police searched her home earlier tonight. They are still working to determine a motive and said a document that has been circulating online that has been attributed to her has not yet been verified by the authorities. I'm joined now by the former FBI deputy FBI director, Andrew McCabe, as well as the creator of the FBI's active shooter program, Catherine Twite. It's great to have you both back with me. We are listening into that press conference to see if there is new information coming out as we're hearing from officials.

Andrew McCabe, let me start with you, though, just on what we're hearing here, about the profile of this shooter.

Well, I mean, you've gotta be shocked by the age. First of all, you have a 15 year old child who somehow gets their hands on a 9 millimeter, semiautomatic pistol, takes it to school, and wreaks this kind of havoc. And the fact that the shooter is female, that is remarkably rare. I think 3% was the fact, the statistic you quoted earlier this evening. But to me, the fact that it's, female is less significant.

I think when we get into the writings and into the motive and understand more about this person's life, I think the the commonalities between this shooter and the shooters that we've seen in other places are gonna start to emerge. We typically see a pretty I don't wanna call it a standard profile, but there are some distinctive elements that are that are common among shooters across generations, particularly school shooters. Kate can give you the details on those, but these, you know, these isolated, tormented, oftentimes bullied young people, sometimes find themselves in, making this decision.

Yeah. And, Catherine, the other thing that the police chief revealed there, just about the scene and what this looks like. Obviously, 1, we're seeing how quickly the police officers arrived and how quickly the shooter was down as they were there recovering that 9 millimeter pistol. He also said that the shooting took place in a classroom study hall, that it was mixed grades of students. It's not clear if the second grader was in the room or or whatnot when they called 911 to report that a shooting was happening at their school.

But when you hear that and you hear that that they are searching the home of the shooter in Wisconsin, what are they looking for in that home in addition to the writings that we know they already have their hands on?

I think just like Andy said, you know, they need all of the information to know what really the background was, but there will be a long trail behind that shows and those things that show that she was planning this will include an Internet search history that will probably be pretty vivid about how to how to accomplish this and why she wants to accomplish it and maybe other people copycat sort of things. But also we find a lot of writings and and and again as Andy says, we have so many situations where they have all these behaviors of concern. Some of them are physical, so they'll purchase clothing or they'll they'll give away material, they'll send text messages to their friends. That's called leakage. We're gonna look for all of that not only in a computer but in a phone.

But, you know, very often, just like the shooting down in Georgia not too long ago, you open after the search, they open up the center door of the kid's desk and there's the shooting plan. And And I think that's the kind of stuff that you see and we see routinely, not just in schools, but in other locations.

Well and, Catherine, just given your experience, 1, in Wisconsin, but also just with the FBI's active shooter program, a 15 year old female student, how often do you come across that profile of a shooter?

Rare. Very rare, of course, as everybody acknowledges, but we do see more female shooters, who in the education environment than other environments. More often when you count those up, they might be at the university level, and then females often are, in a dual situation. Those handful of shootings where there's a husband and a wife or a boyfriend and a girlfriend. You just don't have a lot of situations where a female kind of, comes to the table and and and outwardly emotes that kind of, anger and violence.

Oftentimes, that's the the suicide is what you see in a female and a male. You're more apt to see that outward expression. And, historically, you know, we've got decades now, unfortunately, to indicate, that that's the fact.

Yeah. Catherine Schweid, Andrew McCabe, thank you both for joining us on this breaking news this hour.

A student and a teacher were killed. 4 others right now remain hospitalized. 2, we understand, are in critical condition. Sources say a female student opened fire. Authorities say, as I said, 2 of those students are fighting for their lives in critical condition.

So we know that 2 individuals were shot and killed. 2 are in critical at this hour. The parents of the shooter, we just learned in that press conference, are actually, as I speak, in an interview right now with police. They are cooperating, answering questions about their child right now. Here's what we know, that the shooting took place just before 11 AM local time, that's central time, just as students were beginning to start their final full week of classes before winter break.

Got a call coming in at Abundant Life Christian Church 4901 for engine 5 and medic 5 for a shooter just advising someone was shot.

And for the first time, we are now hearing from a student who was inside the school as the shots were fired.

Did you hear gunshots? Yeah. I heard. Tell me what happened. We heard them, and then some people started firing.

And then we just waited till the police came, and then they escorted us out to the church. How many gunshots did you hear? I heard 2. And what were you thinking?

What are

you thinking now? I was scared. Why did they do that? Why?

Whitney Wild is out front live from Madison, Wisconsin. And, Whitney, I know you were just in mass press conference. You were the 1 who got the information about the shooter's parents right now being in an interview with police. What more are you learning?

Well, Erin, there are still many details, left to learn, but what we know at this point is that this teenager, according to a law enforcement source, was a female, a 17 year old, who died of a self female, a 17 year old, who died of a self inflicted gunshot wound. As you mentioned, police are interviewing the parents as we speak. That is absolutely critical as they try to figure out what the motive was here, Erin. At this point, chief Sean Barnes, the chief of the Madison Police Department, could not describe in detail the motive. I asked, if the parents are supplying that information.

He was reluctant to say that they were because the most important thing he says in an interview like that is to just let the parents talk, and keep that conversation free flowing. The the critical details, Erin, that we did learn at this press conference for the first time all day is what kind of security protocols that school has in place. And and it's really a lesson for schools even beyond Madison because the representative of the school here said that they took advantage of Department of Justice safety grants, to help them beef up their security. And as part of that, Erin, they were able to upload blueprints of their school. And so when police arrived, they were able to download those blueprints of the school immediately, which significantly helps a police response.

We know that police response was immediate, Erin. It was within 3 minutes. That call came in at 10:57 AM. Police were inside that building by 11 AM. Law enforcement did not fire any shots according to police.

Again, there's, a law enforcement source saying that that suspect died the self inflicted gunshot wound, Erin.

Alright. Whitney, thank you very much on the ground there. Julia Khayyam is with us now, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, Tim Clemente, former FBI counter terror agent, and Mary Ellen O'Toole, former senior FBI profiler. So thanks very much to all of you. So, Tim, you heard that press conference and the police chief saying that the shooter's parents are, as we speak, in an interview with police.

They don't wanna talk about what they've said so far because they are they don't wanna interrupt the interview, and that that interview is still ongoing. What stands out to you from what you've heard here in these past few minutes from officials?

Well, what you just said about what the chief Barnes said, the interview is vitally important right now. This is where you're gonna learn whether the parents had any inkling and either did or did not do anything about that. But 1 of the things I took from that press conference, besides the chief saying that he had he was not prepared to answer about whether or not there was a note or anything left behind, kinda leads me to believe there was. But also what the DOJ official from Wisconsin said, the woman that was in charge of school safety, I think her name was Kilpin

Yes.

Trish Kilpin. She said something vitally important, and that was that these things are always preceded by actions and interest and searches and other information that they're bleeding out. But unless it gets ignored, it can't be stopped. It gets ignored every time over and over and over again. And if we keep ignoring these things from our own kids, from students, from fellow classmates, we'll never prevent these things.

And that's the only thing that prevents them is is seeing something and actually saying something about somebody's behavior changing.

Yeah. She said, 82% of, the that that that somebody somebody knew in 82% of these situations. And, unfortunately, there are a lot of these situations, 88 in the past year, so far this year alone. Mary Ellen, we are learning so, again, parents of the shooter right now in an interview with police, all we understand is that the shooter was at the school at the beginning of the day. Law enforcement officials just say that.

And a law enforcement official told CNN that the shooter was a female student at that school and was a teenager. So, Mary Ellen, just with the basic facts that we know and obviously the question mark out there about the possibility of a note that Tim just alluded to, how unusual is a female shooter?

Extremely unusual. We just simply don't have that many. It's all anecdotal. So we can't, we can't even, do any kind of statistical analysis. It's just so very unusual.

Without exception, the vast majority of these shooters are males.

And, Juliet, you know, in the context of how unusual it is to see a female shooter, this person obviously hurt 8 people, killed a teacher, killed another student, 2 other students are in critical condition tonight, and we don't yet know the identities of any of these people who have so needlessly lost their lives or are fighting for their lives tonight. The scale of this, though, Juliet, seems to indicate that this wasn't about a conflict with 1 person, at least just from the very basic information that we have.

That's the the the evidence so far leads us to believe that we don't know why she, when she turned the gun on herself in terms of what did she hear police? Was this part of the plan? Or did she target someone and and therefore was done with her work? And I think what's been amazing in this sort of in the regard in regards to this shooting over the course of the day, I've been with you since since we first heard, the news with the network, is, how transparent, the the police and all officials have been. It's very helpful to a community, to believe that that they are getting the answers that they need and what seems like the inexplicable.

And also what's interesting from a government PR government communications perspective is they are using these press conferences as teachable moments. Tim picked up on 1 of them, that, in terms of the family as, in terms of the DOJ official. Basically, these things are always known, and we have to get serious about these interventions because otherwise, these kids are going into schools and harming others. The other was earlier in the day when the police chief just basically didn't care about anyone's politics. He basically just said, this is not only a school.

It's also a religious school. These should be safe places, and we need to honestly get our act together as a country if we keep doing this. And I was surprised how quickly the the the officials, not the politicians Yeah. Went to these moments.

Yeah. It went right there. And, as you point out, Tim, when she said 82% of these situations, somebody knows. I mean, that is stunning when you think about, Yeah.

The the horrific these horrific situations. Perspective now from the aforementioned CNN senior crime and justice correspondent, Shimon Prokipis, CNN chief law enforcement intelligence analyst, John Miller, and Christopher Vangeli, chief of police in Plainville, Connecticut, and Sandy Hook first responder during his time with the Newtown, Connecticut Police Department. Shimon, since Whitney brought up your reporting, which just broke, you just sat down, bring us up to speed on what you just learned.

So the law enforcement officials there, the detectives have been going through as much information as they possibly could, gathering social media, gathering other information, and they have some information now in part that this was planned sometime in advance, but they have also come across writings that they are now trying to link to the shooter that could spell motive, that could give some in information to investigators. They're going through all of that. 1 of the things that is happening and what is delaying some of this information from coming out is that the parents of the alleged shooter are being interviewed by detectives. And so they're still in the process. Literally, 30, 40 minutes ago when police last held a press conference, the parents were still being interviewed by investigators.

They're cooperating. But, obviously, for investigators, they wanna know what more do the parents know. And the other thing I wanna note is that during the press conference, the Wisconsin DOJ official who spoke indicated that there was some information that people knew perhaps what was going on in this person's life and that they never reported it. And so they stress, if you hear of any information, if you know of something that's going on in someone's life that could potentially lead to a school shooting, Please report it.

Yeah. We'll get to that in a second because I do think that is interesting. That was an interesting breadcrumb they left right there. John Miller, a female shooter. How unusual is that?

That's pretty unusual. I mean, if you take just not just the school shootings, but the mass shootings out of a 141, you have 6 female shooters. But, you know, we do remember, the Audrey Hale case at the Nashville Christian School in 2023, which was, you know, another unusual marker, but also another Christian school.

And to Shimon's point, if you see any size of these things, you should speak up. There's the discussion about guns, which is an important discussion to have. But beyond that, law enforcement isn't waiting for these discussions. Right? They're also trying to figure out ways to maybe prevent school shootings before they happen.

What have they come up with after so many examples?

So the FBI's behavioral analysis unit has been working on this, studying it first, and then from the studies, gleaning, okay. What comes out of all of this data that would be helpful? And the main point here is, and we're seeing signs of it again today is, we have this narrative that the that a child or a person was having problems at school or at work, and they just snapped. And they came in and shot everybody that day. Not how it works.

Not how it works. People don't snap. These things build. And they plan, they prepare, they arm, they go through many steps, and they also have many tells, if you will. And 1 of the things the FBI has been working on is literally a campaign to get this out, and they say some of the indicators that you'll see in people and this will be detectable by friends, classmates, a guidance counselor, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a a brother or sister, parents, significantly reduced ability to cope with stress or setbacks, expressions of hopelessness, helplessness, lack of nonviolent options for solving problems, persistent fantasies about violence.

Now that's a core group, but there's 15 categories that they say, and you may not see all of them. You may see a cluster of them. And what they're saying is, this is the time when you go you go to someone you trust. And all of this is available, by the way, on www.fbi.gov/prevent. And there's tools and brochures and lists.

But this is this is this is going to be how we're gonna prevent it.

And it's a worthy it's worthy time to spend. If they're gonna train kids in school for how to react to this, we should all take the time to look at this type of thing so we can all do our part. Chief Vangeli, you know, you were a first responder at Sandy Hook, which I'm reminded was 12 years ago, almost exactly 2 pays 2 days past that at this point. So what's going through your mind tonight, and what do you make so far of what we know about this shooting in Madison?

Yeah. Well, I know it's gonna be a very long road for them. I know they're gonna lean on each other very heavily, and I I know that they're gonna get through it with the love of their families, and with the people in that community. It was 2 days ago, the anniversary of Sandy Hook, and, you know, I spent it at at home just quietly. And, of course, I thought about it.

And to have this happen, you know, 2 days after that, it really brings back all of those memories. You know, when you've watched the coverage on the news and you see the police cars and the ambulances coming and, you know, those poor officers, what they went through, the poor families, what they're going through, it brings it all back. And, I I wanna give credit to the Madison Police Chief. He's doing a fantastic job, in terms of putting out information. The Madison Police Department did a very fantastic job.

The fact that they train, they got in there quickly, that's step 1. As far as the motive, they're investigating. The motive is important, of course. People wanna know what would cause a person to do this. In my estimation, though, the motive doesn't really do much to justify anything.

How do you justify what you did? It doesn't mean much to the parents. You know, if every kid that had a bad time at school or had a breakup or had an issue was a school shooter, we'd have a school shooting every single day. That's just not the case. And so what they have to do right now are are 2 things.

1, they have to see if this person had accomplished. Was there anything else that they were going to do or anybody to help them? The second thing they need to do is they need to see if there was any, precipitating, news or events. Was there a tell as somebody had mentioned before? Did anybody know that this was gonna happen?

Did this person post anything on social media indicating that they might take this action? How did they get the gun? Those are the types of questions that need to be answered.

Yeah. I mean, in your case 12 years ago, there were multiple crime scenes, and, of course, the evidence spanned an entire town or an entire region. Shimon, you covered Uvalde, another school shooting, another tragedy where the police response has been heavily criticized and just was not good. How did it differ from that?

Oh, much different. In fact, the chief talked about it. Someone had asked him at the press conference. You you go towards the dying. You tore you go towards the killing.

You go towards the sound of gunfire, and that's exactly what they did here. And I I and for the chief, I know this chief, and I I've done some stories with him. You know, this is something that they take very seriously, and they've done a lot of training on. Just recently, 2 weeks ago, they've had training medics. The tactical medics were just in training today when this happened, and they had to respond to this.

Real life, he was saying that while they're in training, they have to respond to this. And many of the people in in the law enforcement community looked at what happened at Uvalde and said never on my watch. And you can hear that in the chief's voice today. He said, we got there. We got in as quickly as we could.

They were on scene within 3 minutes, and the chief of the fire department there said they had everyone transported to the hospital within 15 minutes.

Really was a remarkable response, and the school had just undergone training as well. Everyone was was trained for this. John, a lot of these mass shootings involve, assault rifles, you know, AR fifteens or the like. This 1 was a handgun. How does that have an impact on the casualties, but also the investigation now?

You know, handguns are very common in these as well. If you look at the most deadly, you know, mass school shooting was Virginia Tech, and that was an individual who had 2 Glock pistol pistols and multiple magazines. Because the dynamic here is this is close quarters battle, except it's a one-sided battle. Only the shooter has the gun. And when you look at your typical 9 millimeter semiautomatic, that's between 1014 rounds in a magazine.

You drop 1 magazine and you can, you know, get 10 or 14 more. And when you look at the numbers here, except for the round that the shooter saved for herself, 9 people shot, 3 dead, or or injured. It looks like she expended a lot of those rounds before turning the gun away.

Alright. John Miller, Shimon, Prokipas, chief Angheli, thank you all so much for contributing to this discussion that I regret that we have to have.