The teenager who shot dead a student and a teacher at a religious school in Wisconsin brought two guns to school and was in contact with a man in California who authorities said planned to attack a government building, according to court documents.
the police I was still investigating why. The 15-year-old student at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison shot and killed a fellow student and a teacher Monday before turning the gun on herself, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said. Two other students who were shot remain in critical condition at this time.
“We may never know what he was thinking that day, but we will do our best to try to add or give as much information as possible to our audience,” Barnes said.
Meanwhile, a California judge issued a restraining order Tuesday under California’s red flag gun law against a 20-year-old Carlsbad man. The order requires the man to surrender his weapons and ammunition to police within 48 hours unless an officer requests them sooner because he poses an immediate danger to himself and others.
According to the warrant, the man told FBI agents that he had been sending messages to Natalie Rupnow, the Wisconsin shooter, about attacking a government building with a gun and explosives. The warrant did not say which building he had attacked or when he planned to launch his attack. She also does not detail her interactions with Rupnow, except to indicate that the man was planning a mass shooting with her.
The student who died in Monday’s school shooting was identified in an obituary published Wednesday as Rubi Patricia Vergara, 14, of Madison. She was a freshman at the school and “an avid reader, loved art, singing, and playing keyboard in the family worship band,” according to the obituary.
The Dane County medical examiner on Wednesday night identified the teacher who was killed as 42-year-old Erin Michelle West.
“Our hearts are heavy over these losses,” the school’s communications director, Barbara Wiers, wrote in an email to the Associated Press.
Police, with help from the FBI, were reviewing online records and other resources and talking to the shooter’s parents and classmates in an attempt to determine a motive for the shooting, Barnes said.
“I don’t know if he planned it that day or if he planned it a week before,” Barnes said. “To me, bringing a gun to school to hurt people is planning. That’s why we don’t know what premeditation is.”
Although Rupnow had two guns, Barnes said he does not know how he obtained them and declined to say who purchased them, citing the ongoing investigation.
No decision has been made about whether Rupnow’s parents could be charged in connection with the shooting, but they have been cooperating, Barnes said.
The school shooting was the latest of dozens across the United States in recent years, including particularly deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut, Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas.
But the one in Wisconsin stands out because school shootings committed by teenage women have been extremely rare in the US.
[Con información de AP]
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