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school and was found dead inside the building. cnn has obtained some new audio from the city of madison fire scanner that captures the moment the call came in. >> go ahead and a call coming in at abundant life christian church 4901 for engine five and medic five for a shooter. just advising someone was shot. >> we are set to hear again from law enforcement with an update at just about any moment. here is the police chief earlier today today is a sad, sad day, not only for madison, but for our entire country. >> we're yet another police chief is doing a press conference to speak about violence in our community, specifically in one of the places that's most sacred to me. as someone who loves education and to someone who has children that are in schools. >> cnn's senior crime and justice reporter shimon prokupecz is following the latest developments in. shimon, i understand you just got off the phone with some officials.

what are you hearing? right. >> so they're still sorting through a lot of the information and trying to conclusively identify the shooter here. that's still ongoing. what i was told was that the shooter was transported to the hospital. and so that's that much we know that that that when police arrived and emergency officials arrived, they started transporting the victims to the hospital. and one of the people they transported was the the the shooter in this case. and at this point, police are not in a position to identify even whether it's a male or a female. they're still working through that, and they're going to be working with the medical examiner's office, but they're not at a point where they can identify the shooter, at least not yet. the other thing is, is that there were two victims at the school that sadly died, a teacher and a student. the other victims are

now at the hospital. some are in surgery in really just bad shape basically no other way to really put it out. but the doctors and the surgeons there are fighting to try and save some lives at at the moment. and so we should be hearing more from police here in the next 30 minutes or so as they're trying to still work through the information, work through the crime scene. it's believed that the shooting occurred in one area, either the hallway or or a classroom. so that's that's what police are working with. you have the atf there. the fbi is helping out as well. but right now, the madison, wisconsin police and their investigators, their detectives, their crime scene folks are all working through this scene to try and put all the pieces together. but the police say they're working through everything right now. they're going through social media. they're going through

other information that they've been able to obtain to try and learn more about the shooter, more about exactly what happened here and how all this happened. but they have a clearer picture of things, but they're just not ready to share yet. they have been able to talk to some witnesses where this happened. they've been able to talk to some of the staff, and so they have some idea. but again, they're trying to run things down because they're already they're concerned that there's a lot of speculation out there about what happened here. and they don't want to add to that. and they want to make sure that they have everything figured out before they release it. but some new information about where some of the victims were found, that the shooter here was transported to the hospital and died at the hospital, and that there are others now at the hospital, victims here that are being treated, some of them in very serious condition as doctors and surgeons are trying to save, save lives. >> shimon, thank you so much

for the update. and if you were just watching the screen and you saw that caravan of dogs walked by and you thought perhaps they're therapy dogs, you would be right heading there to the area where we know that family members and kids have been as they are awaiting reunification. joining us now, we have former fbi profiler gregg mccrary and former boston police commissioner ed davis, and we also have former fbi agent breanna fox. um, gregg, you have the atf saying it's running trace on the weapon that was used in the school shooting. tell us a little bit about that. and also sort of what your expectation may be as we await that. >> yes, the trace will be to run the weapon down because they want to find out where that came from. i mean, in chances are good it came from the home. when we have these juveniles that do the school shooting most often, the gun is in the home and they get they get ahold of it. but we'll, you know, we'll find out

eventually exactly where that where that weapon came from. so that's one narrow piece of the investigation that's going on right now. >> and i'm curious to get your reaction to what we just heard from shimon, that officials are still working to conclusively identify the shooter, and they have not yet confirmed whether it's a male or female. does that surprise you that we're now a couple of hours removed from the shooter being discovered deceased at the school to still not having a clear identification or confirmation of an identification? >> right. well, they don't want to put out anything prematurely, so they're doubling down. i mean, it could be the, the the shooter was just scooped up and taken off and is in surgery. and they're trying to figure all this out on the go. chances are they know a lot more than they're letting us know at this point. but they want to double and triple check anything. the last thing they want to do is put out any sort of misinformation. >> yeah, and we saw the

accidentally that did happen, of course, with the death toll here. thankfully, it was revised back down. but as we just heard from shimon, there were two victims at the school who did not survive. one of them a teacher, a teacher, one of them. i'm sorry. did someone say something in my ear? nope. all right. i heard something there. um, one was a teacher. one was a student. but there are a number of victims right now who are in surgery, and they have really tough injuries. this is the expectation, right? this is what we have come to learn. goes along with these school shootings that have become so prevalent no question. >> this is a very difficult time. there was a slight mistake there in the reporting where too many people were getting involved in the information chain, and there's something called the fog of

war, which we all experience in situations like this. >> the the old adage is, the first information you get is always wrong. so it's really important to think about the fact that these incidents, the places of importance change as the incident unfolds. so the first place will be at the scene of the shooting, and then there's a period of time where you need to transfer your intelligence gathering and trusted sources into the hospital emergency room and maybe the operating room to get the best information to the commanders that you can. when something like this is happening. that's where we are right now, and we don't know how long the emergency room and the operating room is going to be the center of attention. but then we'll go back to the scene processing the scene. and and also one focus is the command center that's set up. and so all of the information is supposed to flow in there. and um, you know, things like the identity of the shooter,

they're going to be very careful on right now because of the slight mistake that happened. so we may be delayed in getting really good information on that for a while and, brianna, from your perspective, what do you make of what we're hearing from law enforcement and how do you envision the next steps of this investigation well, unfortunately, we it seems like they know exactly who did it. >> the next questions are why and how. and this has been covered by the other panelists. but i think it really goes to say, you know, did this juvenile get it? the gun which was used from home, or was this something that they were able to seek out, let's say, from stealing it from a vehicle? was this a stolen weapon? was this something that they came across accidentally? was this premeditated? was this a targeted shooting? all of that is going to come through a lot of i think, discussions with

people that were at the school, family members, friends. and then i think the next big piece is, why did this happen and how could it be prevented? we keep asking this question over and over, and it seems like we get the same kind of answers every single time one of these happens, but, um, learning about what could have been done to make this so it didn't happen, and using that to move forward, both for this community but for other communities, too. >> yeah, brianna, i think that's so key. obviously, in the communities where this happened, it's so important for them to know something of the why and to try to maybe make some sense of this. i think ultimately, it's hard to ever make sense of this, but trying to understand so that you have some information of value, like you said, that can prevent something like this from happening in the future. can you talk a little bit more about that? because when we

think of some of the things that schools have adopted, whether it is locks in, in doors or the way they've changed doors or the way they've changed procedures, i think, for instance, in the case of the athens shooting, we actually saw a door lock. that was very helpful. we've seen that in other shootings. we've also seen things that quite frankly, don't work. can you just talk a little bit more about that? >> absolutely. well, it's hard to study a negative. right. so a school shooting that didn't occur. but that being said, we also know that there are a number of of these tragedies that have occurred where we have put into place these preventative measures and it wasn't sufficient to prevent the, the, the shooting from occurring. so i think doing more research on that, to know which of these things are the most effective, um, research tends to suggest over and over

and over again that access to guns is the biggest predictor of being able to commit a shooting. and so limiting that access, particularly for kids that are people that are saying they're making threats, they are, um, disgruntled. they have a reason that they would want to undertake this being extra proactive. a lot of times we hear that this was something that was coming. um, you know, people heard about it. and a lot of times people didn't say anything. but there are certain measures that seem to be a lot more effective than others. and having that awareness and putting our money and policy towards those versus the less effective things, i think would be a good move forward for our country. >> everyone, please stand by as we gather more information awaiting this press conference scheduled by madison police. much more on our breaking news ahead. stay with us i mean, the

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learning? >> well, boris and brianna, we understand that the shooter used a nine millimeter pistol. that's according to our cnn's josh campbell. this is a gun that is pretty common and that it's easy to obtain. but the question now exactly is how did a child, someone who's under the age of 18, obtain that weapon? so according to a source, we understand a nine millimeter pistol was used in this shooting. anything beyond this in terms of what how old the shooter is exactly or what their gender is? we do not have that information. that information has not yet been released. we also understand that a teacher and a student were killed. those two, a teacher and a student are the two that have died. we also understand the shooter is dead. and then there are six people who were injured a and their injuries ranging from minor to life threatening. so of course, the numbers of the deceased could change throughout the day. we are expecting a press conference again from the police chief in about 15

minutes. we also understand that saint mary's hospital in madison, they have been receiving patients from this tragedy, and in fact, they have had to close their offices to all other patients. because of this, they have created a reunification center for parents. we've also been seeing throughout the day that parents have been reunified with their students here being taken on busses. the the small christian school here serves anywhere. students from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade. so a big range, but very young children at this school serves about roughly 300 students, and there's about 55 staff members. but we are awaiting that press conference here in about 15 minutes. we're hoping to get more information. there has been confusion throughout the day of the number deceased, but right now, at this hour, we understand that two people have been killed, a teacher and a student. the shooter is dead, six people are injured, and a

nine millimeter pistol was used by the shooter. boris. >> brianna, veronica. veronica. miracle. thank you so much for that update. we want to discuss the latest with democratic wisconsin state representative sheila stubbs. she's actually set to represent the area where the shooting took place as of the beginning of next year. state rep, thanks so much for being with us. i wonder what you are hearing from members of your community in the wake of today's shooting well, thank you brianna and boris for this interview. >> my heart and my prayers are with the students, with the staff, with the families, and it's with the community of abundant life christian school. following this morning's tragic shooting. you know, as a parent myself and as a pastor, this tragedy hit especially close to home for me. so my thoughts are with pastor tim flannery and his congregation in this time of intense

worrying and grief. but i am so grateful to our first responders for their quick action and for the continuing help to reunite students and families, because everyone deserves to feel safe in our communities, especially in our schools. and i just heard from my daughter today for the first time, and it's a hard time. we're asking for prayers from all around our nation to please lift up our community at this time and you know, it used to be that it it would be some time before i think folks would start thinking about, how do you look at a policy prescription for dealing with something like this? >> but, assemblywoman, could you could you sort of talk a little bit about what you want to see lawmakers do? is there more to be done in your state, and is there more to be done nationally

let me say this first and foremost, no child should have to fear for their safety during the day of school, especially when we enter this holiday season. >> my heart breaks for those who have an empty seat at their tables this year. i'm asking to keep the families in this community in your thoughts as we begin to address the aftermath of the situation and come together for healing. um, for years i have been a strong advocate for gun safety measures. we see stories like this across our country, and today i am just heartbroken to see my community hurting like this. we we have to do so much more to protect our kids and to protect our communities. and something must be done to put an end to senseless violence in our state and in our nation. >> to that point,

assemblywoman, i just wonder where you think this conversation and policy prescriptions are headed, seeing as though in recent years efforts to enact some form of gun legislation and limit the amount of guns that are out there to contribute to that, contribute to scenarios like the one we're facing now. um, we've seen 83 school shootings this year. by cnn's count, the most we've seen since cnn kept track of them. i wonder where you think this is going if we haven't really seen action taken on this? >> yet today? i just want to be so respectful to these families that are grieving, that are hurting our community. and i think that everyone who has spoken up, um. period across our nation about gun safety,

we're going to need everyone's help again. we're going to need people to show up at our state capitol and advocate for the safety of their kids in our schools. um, we have to just end this senseless violence. and as a legislator who's put forth commonsense legislation, i'll continue to work bipartisan in this building to work with my colleagues to put together legislation that we want to see passed. um, again, enough is enough, and we should not find one more family in this situation that's hurting when there's so much more we could do to prevent this type of situation from happening. um, but again, today i want to focus on supporting the families and those that are directly affected by this tragedy. and i want a law enforcement officials to answer as many questions. specifically around this investigation. but i just want to say this in this interview that i want to thank madison police chief doctor

sean barnes and his team for what they're doing to continue to update us. i'll be learning more at 230 today. central time. um, for the additional briefing and information. but again, right now our community is hurting. families are they don't know what really happened. we're learning bits and pieces. and so i want you to know, as the new legislator for this upcoming district, that i'm going to do everything i can do to be there for every one of my constituents and support them, but continue to introduce legislation that i believe will make a difference in our state. and i will continue to advocate not only at a state level, but continue to advocate at a federal level. um, we need everyone to listen. and those that are victim's voices need to be the loudest in the room. >> wisconsin state representative sheila stubbs, thank you so much for your time

today. appreciate you. >> thank you so much. >> and as she just mentioned, we are moments away from a police press conference with an update on the shooting. it is set to start in only a few minutes. you see the microphones there at a makeshift podium. we're going to bring you these comments live as we get them. stay with cnn hi, susan honey. >> yeah, i respect that. but that cough looks pretty bad. try this. robitussin, honey. >> the real honey you love. plus the powerful cough relief you need. >> mind if i root through your trash? >> robitussin with real honey and elderberry emergen-c crystals pop and fizz when you throw them back. >> and who doesn't love a good throwback? now, with vitamin d for the dark days of winter. i miss munch, munch for holiday traditions. >> old and new. >> when you want gifts to

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you. download rocket money today. >> i'm pete muntean at reagan national airport. >> this is cnn. >> back now to our breaking news. shock and sadness right now in madison, wisconsin, after a deadly school shooting. and right now we are standing by for a police press conference that is set to begin at any moment. but here is what we know right now. police say a gunman killed two people at

abundant life christian school this morning. and a police source says that the victims were a student and a teacher. several more were injured in this attack. >> investigators say the shooter, who is believed to be a student at the school, was found dead at the scene and cnn has now learned from a law enforcement source that it was a nine millimeter, nine millimeter pistol that was used in the attack. cnn's shimon prokupecz is back with us and has been on the phone with law enforcement all afternoon. what more are you expecting to hear from this press conference, shimon? >> well, most importantly, i think the breakdown of the victims. how many are students? how many are teachers? just to give us a sense. you know, always very important in these situations to remember the victims and to learn as much as possible about the victims. so i'm hoping we get some more information on that. but there's been a lot of confusion, but also just the fog of war, right? this is in the middle of as the victims are being treated at the hospital. so as you said, we do know that at least two of the

two dead victims are a teacher and a student both dying on scene at the school and the shooter. police are not yet able to definitively identify or identify the shooter, even whether it's a male or a female. they won't say at this point they're waiting to identify to make some more conclusive identification before releasing that information. the other thing that i think is going to be very interesting here is that it's a handgun. we know the nine millimeter that is going to raise some interesting questions for investigators as to how the shooter got their hands on this handgun. while wisconsin is an open carry state, there's a lot of questions about a handgun and how someone could get their hands on on it and whether or not it was legally obtained. did they get it from someone? and of course, those are going to be the questions that investigators are going to be asking. i don't know if they'll be able to release any

of that. it's too soon. perhaps the other thing is maybe more of a timeline here about how things unfolded. this seems based on the information that i have and people i've talked to, that this was all pretty self-contained in one area where all of this happened, and it all happened very quickly, and police arrived very quickly that even that some of the people were still alive, but sadly died on scene. and the shooter was still alive and was transported to the hospital. so police were able to get on scene fairly quickly and establish exactly what happened. and now the investigators have taken over from the wisconsin, the madison, wisconsin police department. the detectives, as they try to figure out exactly why this happened. the fbi is assisting. the atf is assisting, but there's going to be a lot of questions centered, i think right now around that handgun and how this person, this shooter was able to get their hands on the

handgun. and i think that's something that investigators are going to want to be able to answer, you know, because a lot of times, think about this when we cover these shootings, we always hear about long guns and rifles being used in ar style weapons. that's not the case here. this is a handgun, a much different situation, which presents all sorts of different legal questions, which i think are going to be interesting to see how that develops. >> and i was going to ask you, shimon, but we got the answer as we were watching here. if students had been reunified and we've been seeing a lot of kids kind of lower elementary, it looks like these are these are little kids, i'd say they they're obviously blurred. we we are the cameras. they're protecting their faces. it is blurred. but you can make out their outlines and they are maybe third or fourth grade, maybe second. even so, some little kids filing out there as

they are going to be reunified with their families. and the other thing we are looking at is you see there on the top left of your screen is we're awaiting this press conference where we are going to be hearing from the police chief. we're going to be hearing from madison's mayor, and we're also going to be hearing from the madison county. executive. greg mccrary. you were with us. and as you heard shimon talking there about this nine millimeter pistol that was used, i wonder what you are thinking about that you had said before that in most cases, weapons are brought when it's a juvenile from their home. we still obviously have some information to learn. we're awaiting that here for this press conference. but what are you thinking as you hear this news? >> well, statistically that's true. and and if we just go with the stats, that's what we're going to find is that the weapon came from the home

or came from an area, some area that this this child had access to was able to, to access the weapon and, and bring it to school. so that's that's exactly what i think we're going to find. uh, you know, the couple other things to think about when we get into this and, and as you were pressing the. politician there, um, to give some. of really uh, specific interrupt you because we see the police chief in madison headed to the podium. >> let's listen in right now. live to this news conference. >> this is the part where,

again, i would normally start by saying good afternoon and thanking you for being here. but under these circumstances, i'll just give you a minute to start your live streams or do whatever you need to do. and while you're doing that, my name is chief sean barnes s h o n b a r n e s. i'm currently the chief of police for the madison police department. i'll be providing a brief update of the school shooting that we had today in madison. um, there are some information that we're not going to release because it's still an ever evolving situation. uh, you'll hear from some of our representatives from our city and from our county. and behind me are a lot of people who came together today to make sure that, uh, the day ended well and that everyone else was safe. so with that being said, i'll go ahead and start my remarks. uh, today truly is a

sad day for madison and for our country. it is a day that i believe will live in our collective minds for a very, very long time. here are the details. today at 10:57 a.m., our team was called to the abundant life christian school in reference to an active shooter. we know that three people are dead, including the suspect shooter. we know that the suspect shooter was a teenage student who attended the school. at this time, we are not releasing the age or gender of the student or any other identifying remarks about the student. two other people have died, uh, that died were a teacher and a teenage student. six other people were injured. two students are now in critical condition in the

hospital, and these injuries are considered life threatening. injuries four students are also at other area hospitals with non-life threatening injuries, but these are just the physical injuries that we know about. we know that this was the middle of the day of a school day, and so there will be other injuries that will have to face for a very, very long time. and we're going to do everything we can as a community to heal those injuries. as well. many of you have asked me about the why of this. why did this happen? uh, what do we know? what was the motivation? i do not know. but i will tell you this. our detectives are working hard in the investigative process to find out as many answers as we can so that we can further prevent these things from happening, not only in this community, but in other communities around our country

i think we can all agree that enough is enough, and we have to come together to do everything we can to support our students, to prevent press conferences like these from happening again and again and again. the school building itself is clear. we have cleared the school. there is no other threat or danger to the community. we're in the process now of what we call reunification. and what that simply means is making sure that every student that was in the school is present and accounted for and returned to their loved ones. this usually takes a while, but we have practiced. unfortunately, and practice and practice, and that's why we're able to reunify students with their parents within hours of a school shooting the reunification is taking place at the dean clinic on stoughton

road, and i certainly thank them for their help. again, we need our public to find an alternate route if that is your normal way home. as we get closer to the end of the day, please be patient or find another route home. we are currently processing the scene. we are interviewing those who may have been witnesses and we are obtaining search warrants to get additional information. and lastly, i want to just say thank you to everyone who is standing behind me. the organizations and agencies that they represent, the men and women of the madison police department and dane county sheriff's office who selflessly ran into a building not knowing what they were going to encounter. many of you know this about me, but i started my professional career, if you will, as a public school teacher back in 1997, and i taught public school for four years. it was one of the greatest joys of my life.

before becoming a police officer. and i can tell you what a special place our schools are. with that being said, we owe it to our community to do everything possible to ensure that it's not only a special place, but a safe place as well. and we're going to continue to do that. so we ask for your patience as information is coming in. we will do the best that we can to bring you accurate and timely information, but we want to make sure that our public knows that we're working extremely hard on this particular incident. there are a lot of people involved, and certainly we're going to come together as a community. i like to bring up at this time, police fire chief chris carver. >> thank you. chief barnes. before i start, i the only thing i can say is this is not a place that any fire chief or

any one of us would ever want to be. and i can't believe i'm standing here today talking about this incident. the fire department is a part of this community. much like all the folks standing up here with me today. our hearts are with and our arms are around. everybody impacted today and everybody within our community. with that, i won't repeat the details shared by chief barnes, but i will share with you the fire department activity for today. much like chief barnes mentioned at 1057, we were also dispatched with engine five and medic five to the same location. throughout the course of the incident, we responded with five engine companies, four ladder companies, 15 ambulances. i would like to take a moment and share our gratitude for our county partners throughout a multitude of ems and fire agencies that joined us in the response today. we also had 11 off duty chief officers that came in on this response. it was a tremendous response from the fire department. we transported four patients to saint mary's.

we transported three patients to the university of wisconsin hospitals. on the arrival of our crews, i can say my gratitude to our membership for what they did and their selfless actions today. um, it's hard for me to place into words what they ran into as well. um, they did that immediately. they did that selflessly and within a course of 15 minutes from the first transport to the last transport, all the patients were on their way to the hospital. um, so to our membership within the madison fire department and within all the emergency services, my gratitude, my recognition of the work that goes into this, the training that went into this, that, again, we had hoped we would never have to put into practice one more time on behalf of the madison fire department. our hearts are with you. our arms are around you, and we will be with you throughout the duration of this. so at this point, i will step aside, turn it over to the mayor. >> thank you, chief, both of you.

>> this is an incredibly sad day for our community as you've heard, there is no danger to the community at this time, but our entire community has been impacted by this tragic incident. on behalf of the common council and the city of madison staff, i want to offer our heartfelt condolences to the victims and families and to the whole abundant life community. our focus now is on supporting them and supporting the victims and their families, and we will continue to do that through the coming days and weeks. i also want to thank our first responders and the police, fire the medical staff for their quick action and their life saving efforts. as you've heard already, this is a whole of government response. it is not just police and fire. it is not just city of madison

and we have folks from all around the county. we have folks from multiple agencies engaged in both the initial immediate response and the ongoing support, and will be engaged for days and weeks to come. i also want to thank the white house and the governor and others in the federal government and state government for reaching out to offer their support and help, and we will be drawing on resources as needed going forward. but the most importanthing right now is to make sure that we are centering the victims and their families and that we are doing whatever we can to support them and to help them heal and to lift our entire community up through this difficult incident. i am on record that i think we need to do better in our country and our community to prevent gun violence. and i

hope, i hoped that this day would never come in madison. it is not something that any mayor or any fire chief any police chief, any person in public office ever wants to have to deal with. and so i will ask our entire community and our entire country to do whatever we can to make sure that no public official ever has to stand in this position again. and now i'll invite the county executive to the podium. >> good afternoon everyone. >> today our community is reeling from the heartbreaking and senseless tragedies at abundant life christian school in madison. as a mom who received a text from her son at a high school here in the city of madison wondering if he was safe, i can tell you this hits you in the gut. our community is better than this. our country is better than this. cannot continue. my heart goes

out to the victims and their families and the students and the educators and the list goes on and on. every one of us is affected by this unimaginable and unacceptable violence that has hit our community today. dane county stands united in grief with the abundant life christian school community, the sheriff's department, the department of emergency management, department of human services have all been on the front lines. my phone has been ringing from people across our state and our nation, asking what it is that they can do to help our community, and right now, it is our time to be committed to supporting this school. these students and these families and our first responders who went into that building during this devastating time. we must work closely with our law enforcement officers and first responders, mental health professionals, community leaders and policy makers to

ensure that we are taking care of one another. no community should ever have to endure endure such a tragedy. and my administration is going to do everything that it can to provide assistance to those who have experienced this devastating loss and also do everything that we can to prevent such tragedy from occurring to all of those who are grieving in our community, please know that you're not alone. dane county stands with you. we're here to support you in any way possible. please reach out and ask for help. the governor's office, as well as the mayor's office, and i will continue to update the public as we learn more. but please understand, there are many things that we cannot share with you right now. this is an active investigation. this is an active case. the ssm health clinic near the intersection of

buckeye road and stoughton road is the reunification center. i know that that has been out, but we need to make sure that folks know where it is that they can go to be their children again in the coming days. we are going to make sure that we are supporting those that have been most impacted by this. but folks reach out, ask for help. this does not need to be the reality of our community. thank you. >> all right. let's start over here with questions. >> just raise your hand. >> tell us, how did this unfold and give us a bit of a timeline on how your officers got into the building. >> sure. we received a call at approximately 10:57 a.m.. someone from the from the school called 911 to report that there was an active shooter. that means something different to us. obviously, there's different protocols that go out tone alerts, even so that even if officers are busy doing other things, they respond. one of the things that i do want to note is that our training center is about three miles from there. we have a

special event team medics. those that work with the fire department, um, responded to this particular scene from their training day. so what began as a training day? um, became an actual day. and so that's how this call originally came in. nicholas, did you have a question? >> what can you tell us, if anything, more about this shooter and what their motivations were, or have you made contact with their family members? um, anything anything updated on that? >> sure. there's nothing new that i can tell you about the shooter at this time. again, as as as difficult as today is, that's still someone's child that's gone. that's still someone that has to deal with what happened today. and so we want to make sure that we can ensure as much cooperation as we can. um, you asked me about why, as i stated before, i don't know why. and i felt like if we did know why, we

could stop these things from happening. but what i will tell you is, as soon as we are done with the investigation, any information that we uncover that will not compromise the safety of anyone involved or compromise the confidentiality of any of these children that are involved, will tell you. i just ask for your patience. >> all right. over there, sir. >> go right ahead, chief. what kind of gun was used today? >> we know it was a handgun. we know a handgun was recovered at there. >> was the shooting confined to one classroom, or did it spread out throughout? >> multiple. we know it was confined to one space. i don't do not know if it was a classroom or a hallway. one of the things that we've gotten very good at, um, certainly different from in my day, is that if you do not need to be in a crime scene, you do not need to go to a crime scene. and so the crime scene and those persons who were involved, um, they have that crime scene locked down. i did not go or enter into that crime scene, but if you can imagine, most schools, um, the, the

students go together, but they are segregated. so on each different floor and each different group. and so there's no evidence that anyone else was injured that was not in that age group. daniel lippman. >> uh, what can you say at this time about how school staff responded when the shooting started? >> i cannot speak to how the school staff responded. um, you know, we did have injuries, but it could have always, of course, had additional injuries. i do not know what the school's protocols are. again, this is a private christian school. i know that we have a very good rapport with mmsd madison, metropolitan schools, public schools. so we have done trainings for them before, but i would assume that most of the teachers have the same or some similar type of training as a part of their certification. >> there's some conflicting reports online about how many students are enrolled at the school. can you confirm approximately how many students attend the school? >> i do not know how many students attend the school, but

their website says that they serve about 200 families right in the back, white. >> uh, what kind of support systems are going to be made available to the people who are affected by the u.s.? >> that's a good question. as you heard from our mayor and our county exec, we have services within our government that will be made available to them. i have a lot of confidence that they're going to follow through on that, and we'll make sure that that persons who need to. do you guys want to speak to that? >> so, uh, dane county human services, as well as the red cross and other um, consolidated agencies are already on scene. um, and we will continue to be on scene and those resources will be bolstered again. please reach out. you are not alone. we are going to navigate this together. and there are people who are affected by this trauma who are not in the reunification center or at the school. we need folks to be reaching out because we do have resources available. >> did you know if abundant christian life school, did they have a school resource officer

employed? >> it's not my knowledge that they had a school resource officer that if they did, it would be a police officer. and i know where they all are and they're not in the schools right now. >> and 50 in the back there. so in terms of witnesses that you mentioned about investigation, what does that look like and how many witnesses are you guys speaking with? >> sure. so the detectives will talk to anyone who may have seen this particular event unfold. um, anyone that may have been unfortunate to hear something. um, they will be talking to them. it's my understanding that that's in process now, and everyone is cooperating fully. that will give us an idea of not only what unfolded, but it could answer the question to motivation, because, again, the students who unfortunately had to witness this. but that's not something that we want to rush. um, we you know, we're not going to interrogate students. we're going to give them an opportunity to come in and speak to what they may have saw when they feel ready, which is

why some of these questions can't be answered right now. >> all right. um, spectrum, how do you reassure the community that it's still okay to go back to school? >> i mean, everybody's got kids. and i think, you know, maybe it happened in this school, but there's everybody that's got kid anywhere, in the county. it's going to be hard. >> yeah, i think you're asking me, how can i say 100% that no child will ever be harmed in school? i can't no police chief can. but all i can tell you is that we have systems in place so that if something happens, we can respond like we did today. i can tell you that our mayor and our county exec has committed resources to not only public health, but also mental health. i can tell you that every teacher that i've ever had contact with at mmsd cares deeply about their students. every staff member i talked to staff members all the time who tell me things that are going on in the schools and want to do whatever they can, even if it's under anonymity to let me know that they want

to have a safe school. so my reassurance to the public is that if you see something, say something. if you know someone who may be going through a difficult time, please reach out to someone. and i think what i can do is make sure that our police department is transparent and open and honest and inviting for people to call and give information. i think mmsd does an excellent job of that, and the same thing can be said for any other private school. if you want to give information or you need someone to talk to, i can promise you we'll have someone there to get that information. >> all right. >> understanding that this is a private school, you may not be as familiar with. >> what can you tell us about some of the physical measures that are in place at this school, whether it's metal detectors, secure entryway cameras, et cetera.? >> yeah, that's a good question. i've never been in this school. unfortunately, i'm not aware that there were metal detectors in the school. that's something that we can

certainly look at. most schools have some form of surveillance or public space cameras, but that will be, of course, part of the investigation process. >> scott, can you clarify? >> you said seven were injured, but six were hospitalized. does that mean one has been treated and released? and secondly, is the shooter's family cooperating with the investigation? >> yeah, so that's two questions. but let me try to try to handle handle the first one. um, so i'm trying to go back to my notes. so we do know that one person was pronounced at the scene. um, and so that may be the, the seventh person, but we can get you all that information just when we're done, i'll have my pio give that to you so you can report it accurately. and what was your second question? >> is the shooter's family cooperating at this time? >> yes. all right. >> so you have made contact with the shooter's family? we have. and what were the steps taken to do that? >> uh, it's through the investigative process. okay. yeah. >> um, is the shooter's home

being searched? we've heard we've got some information that is ongoing. >> yes. obviously, once we have identified, we have initiated a search, but we think that search is either ongoing now or that search may be concluded. um, of course, it's about safety. that's the first thing, um, making sure that people are safe and then we'll go from there. this has been, uh, i'm sorry. this has been an amazing day for everyone. um, and so if you have someone who is deceased who may have been a shooter, you want to make sure that their family is okay. you don't know. and so that is what we're doing right now. it is about the safety of everyone. this is going to be a long day for the madison police department. we just want a little some of your patience. yes. >> had the school had any prior threats and then just, you know, jumping off of that, do you know if the shooter had had any prior contact before? >> uh, we do not know that the shooter had any prior contact with law enforcement. but i did do a check of the