Police investigate manifesto reportedly left by girl who killed two in school shooting | US crime

The 15-year-old girl who police say killed a teacher, a student and wounded six others before dying by suicide at a school in Madison, Wisconsin, reportedly left a manifesto that investigators are now reviewing.

Police identified Natalie Rupnow – who also went by the name Sophie – as the shooter late on Monday. A law enforcement source told CNN that Rupnow “had been dealing with problems and expressed some of those in writings, which they are now reviewing”.

Rupnow was a pupil at Abundant Life, the Christian private school. Her motive remains unclear. A manifesto, which is not confirmed as genuine by authorities, was published on social media.

“A document about this shooting is circulating at this time on social media, but we have not verified its authenticity,” the Madison police chief, Shon Barnes, said at a news conference.

Barnes said police were still working to identify a reason for the shooting. “At this time, we’re still working on a motive, trying to determine why this happened,” he remarked.

Police said Rupnow’s family members were cooperating with their investigation into the killings at Abundant Life, which occurred at about 11am local time on Monday.

A second-grade student made a 911 call to report the shooting, Barnes said.

“Let that soak in for a minute,” Barnes said of the young caller. Second graders are typically aged between seven and eight.

Barnes said that a handgun was recovered at the scene – but that the police had not yet tracked the weapon’s origin. “How does any 15-year-old get ahold of a gun?” he said.

Police said the shooting took place in a classroom during a study hall session.

The identities of the victims had not been publicly released on Tuesday. Two of the six injured victims remained in critical condition, while others were in stable condition or have been discharged from the hospital.

The school had security cameras installed, and the faculty and students had been trained in lockdown procedures. But as a private school, it was not equipped with metal detectors.

The school’s director of elementary and school relations, Barbara Wiers, said at an evening news conference that students understood the unfolding situation was not a drill and had “handled themselves magnificently”.

“When they heard ‘lockdown, lockdown’ and nothing else, they knew it was real, and they handled themselves brilliantly,” Wiers said.

Young women are far less likely than young men to be suspects in school shootings. According to the K-12 school shooting database, as of Tuesday, nine suspects this year were female compared to 249 male suspected shooters.

The database says it tracks all instances when a gun is brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims, time, or day of the week.

The New York Times reported that the school Rupnow attended and where the shooting took place often serves children who have been bullied or struggled at other schools.

Rebekah Smith, whose teenage daughter was in a physics class down the hall from where the shooting took place, told the outlet that staff were trained to swiftly put a stop to intra-student cruelty.

Smith said members of the school community believed that the shooter was new to the private school this year.

“You feel compassion for the parent who says, ‘Maybe this will help my child,’” Smith told the Times. “I can’t even imagine what they’re feeling.”

The police chief was asked about comments online that suggested the shooter may have been trans.

“I don’t know whether Natalie was transgender or not,” Barnes said.

“I don’t think that whatever happened today has anything to do with how she or he or they may have wanted to identify,” he added. “And I wish people would kind of leave their own personal biases out of this.”