“I’m feeling a little dismayed now, so close to Christmas,” Barnes said. “Every child, every person in that building is a victim and will be a victim forever. ... We need to figure out and try to piece together what exactly happened.”
Abundant Life is a nondenominational Christian school — kindergarten through high school — with approximately 390 students in Madison, the state capital. After the shooting, students were led next door to City Church where buses took them elsewhere to be reunited with families.
Meanwhile, nine public schools in Madison were locked down for a few hours as a precaution.
Barnes declined to disclose the age or gender of the shooter, partly out of respect for family. He said the person was dead when officers arrived, apparently by suicide. No shots were fired by police.
“As difficult as today is, that's still someone's child that's gone,” the chief said.
A motive for the shooting was not immediately known, he added.
“I don’t know why, and I feel like if we did know why, we could stop these things from happening,” Barnes said.
Someone from the school called 911 to report an active shooter shortly before 11 a.m. First responders who were in training just 3 miles (5 kilometers) away dashed to the school for an actual emergency, Barnes said.
Investigators believe the shooter used a 9mm pistol, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
“I’m not aware that the school had metal detectors nor should schools have metal detectors. It’s a safe space,” Barnes said.
Police blocked off roads around the school. Federal agents were at the scene to assist local law enforcement.
Abundant Life asked for prayers in a brief Facebook post.
Bethany Highman, the mother of a student, rushed to the school and learned over FaceTime that her daughter was OK.
“As soon as it happened, your world stops for a minute. Nothing else matters,” Highman said. “There’s nobody around you. You just bolt for the door and try to do everything you can as a parent to be with your kids.”
In a statement, the White House said President Joe Biden has been briefed on the shooting and officials were in touch with local authorities to provide support.
“As a father, a grandfather, and as governor, it is unthinkable that a kid or an educator might wake up and go to school one morning and never come home,” Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said. “This should never happen, and I will never accept this as a foregone reality or stop working to change it.”
It was the the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut; Parkland, Florida; and Uvalde, Texas.
The shootings have set off fervent debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up accustomed to doing active shooter drills in their classrooms. But school shootings have done little to move the needle on national gun laws.
Firearms were the leading cause of death among children in 2020 and 2021, according to KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues.
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said the country needs to do more to prevent gun violence.
“I hoped that this day would never come to Madison,” she said.
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Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer, Ed White and Josh Funk contributed to this report.
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