Girl, 14, among those killed in Wisconsin school shooting

MADISON, Wisconsin – A 14-year-old girl and a teacher at a private Christian school were named by Wisconsin authorities on the night of Dec 18 as the victims of a school shooter earlier this week.

Rubi Vergara, 14, and teacher Erin West, 42, were both killed in the shooting, the Dane County Medical Examiner's office said in a written statement.

Both were pronounced dead at the scene by the authorities just after the Dec 16 shooting.

Two other students shot are in critical condition, while four other people suffered less serious wounds, the police have said.

Meanwhile, investigators were still working on Dec 18 to determine why the shooter, Natalie Rupnow, 15,

opened fire at her private Christian school

in Madison, Wisconsin, before taking her own life.

Natalie was pronounced dead at a local hospital, according to the medical examiner’s statement, which said she died “as a result of firearm trauma”. 

“Identifying a motive is our top priority, but at this time it appears that the motive was a combination of factors,” Madison police chief Shon Barnes told a press conference on Dec 17, without providing additional details.   

The suspect is an outlier in at least one way: women and girls are far less likely to carry out school and mass shootings than male suspects.

Among the 2,610 incidents since 1966 tracked by the K-12 School Shooting Database in which the gender of the shooter is listed, female suspects were responsible for only 107, or about 4 per cent.

The police are scouring Natalie’s online activity, checking her cellphone and interviewing her friends and family to try to understand her motivations, including whether she was a victim of bullying.

They are also examining a manifesto purportedly written by her before the attack to determine its veracity.

The authorities are tracing the handgun used in the attack. It is not yet clear how Natalie gained access to the gun.

Gun club

A Facebook profile belonging to her father, Mr Jeff Rupnow, had a photo posted in August showing his daughter trap-shooting at a local gun club.

In a comment on the photo, Mr Rupnow says he and his daughter joined the club in the spring and “have been loving all every second of it”. He could not be reached for comment.

When asked on Dec 17 if the suspect’s parents could be held legally responsible, Mr Barnes said thus far it does not appear charges are warranted.

The strategy of holding the parents of school shooters partly responsible for their children’s actions appears to be gaining traction among prosecutors. 

Earlier in 2024,

the parents of a school shooter in Michigan were found guilty

of allowing their son access to the murder weapon.

In Georgia, the father of a 14-year-old school shooting suspect was charged with murder and other counts for allegedly buying his son a rifle and ammunition.

In Virginia, the mother of a six-year-old boy who shot a teacher was

convicted of state and federal charges

for failing to secure the weapon her son used.

Court records in Dane County, Wisconsin, show Natalie’s home life may have been challenging.

Her parents married and divorced each other three times after her birth, sharing custody.

Her primary residence switched from her mother’s to her father’s home in July 2022, a year after their final divorce.

In the Facebook photo, Natalie is wearing a T-shirt of the German band KMFDM.

The teenage shooters in the 1999 Columbine school massacre in Colorado were known to be avid fans of the band, and one of the killers posted the band’s lyrics on his website.

At the time, KMFDM issued a statement condemning the Columbine attack, expressing sympathy for the victims and affirming its music was intended to stand against violence.

School shootings have become a near-daily occurrence in the US, with 322 of them in 2024, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. That is the second-highest annual total since 1966, exceeded only by the 349 in 2023.

The repeated violence has fuelled the debate over gun control in the US.

But efforts to tighten firearm laws have made little progress in Congress, where Republicans argue that such limits would violate the US Constitution’s guarantee of the right to bear arms. REUTERS