Wisconsin’s capital city is in shock after a 15-year-old girl pulled out a 9mm pistol Monday morning and shot up her study hall, killing a teacher and a fellow student at the Christian school she attended before turning the weapon on herself and ending her life, Madison Police confirmed.
Natalie Rupnow injured six others, including two students with life-threatening wounds and a teacher and three other students who suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the attack on Madison’s Abundant Life Christian School, according to police.
While Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes wasn’t commenting on motive Monday evening, an unidentified law enforcement source told the Associated Press that the shooter “had been dealing with problems and expressed some of those in writings,” CNN reported. There were reports that Rupnow, who police say liked to go by “Samantha,” had penned a manifesto, although Barnes said police had yet to verify the authenticity of the document. “The good news,” the chief said, is that Madison police have shared the information with its partners at the FBI.
There’s no doubt the suspected killer was disturbed, as evidenced by her violent outburst at the K-12 private school with a mission “to develop students who are committed disciples of Jesus Christ through an excellent, comprehensive, Biblically-integrated educational program.”
She planned the attack in advance, a “law enforcement official familiar with the investigation” told CNN.
‘I Don’t Think That’s Important’
There was speculation Monday that the shooter was transgender, although other sources disputed the claim. Some said she had an “online obsession with school shooters.”
Barnes insisted that he doesn’t care whether Rupnow was transgender, as some reports indicated. It’s not important, he said, when asked by a leftist reporter about “misinformation” online. The Madison journalist effectively wagged her finger at parental rights group for claiming the shooter was transgender, “which is a reaction that we see across the country linked with mass shootings to claim that trans people are dangerous.”
Barnes, a far-left police chief in one of the most LGBTQ agenda-pushing cities in America, said he wished people would “leave their own personal biases out of this.”
“I don’t know whether Natalie was transgender or not and quite frankly I don’t think that’s even important. I don’t think that’s important at all,” the chief told reporters at an evening press conference. “I don’t think that whatever happened today has anything to do with how she or he or they my have wanted to identify …”
Barnes subsequently acknowledged that Rupnow’s gender identity “is something that may come out later.”
While investigators continue to search for answers, the transgender question could prove to be very important. Just ask the families at Nashville’s Covenant School.
‘It is Vitally Important’
In March 2023, a 28-year-old woman who identified as a transgender man stormed into the private Christian elementary school and murdered three third-graders and three staff members before Metro Nashville Police officers fatally shot the killer.
Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and editor-in-chief of Star News Digital Media, has been seeking the release of the Covenant killer’s manifesto for a year and a half. He’s a plaintiff in a lawsuit demanding the police department turn over the shooter’s voluminous writings. Leahy’s flagship publication, the Tennessee Star, has obtained and published dozens of pages of the writings, screeds that offer a glimpse into the twisted mind of a mass shooter.
“We clearly have a huge mental health problem with young people in America today,” Leahy told The Federalist Monday night in a phone interview. “It is very clear that the killer in Nashville suffered severe mental health problems and had in fact been treated for psychiatric difficulties for 22 years. Now, the reports indicate that a 15-year-old girl is responsible for the heinous murders today at a Christian school in Madison, Wis. She purportedly left behind a manifesto, according to some sources.”
“It is vitally important that these documents left behind by young mass murderers be released to the public so that we can understand the deep problems of mental illness that drove them to these actions, so that we can prevent such terrible crimes in the future,” Leahy added.
As the Tennessee Star has reported, the FBI hastily acts to thwart the release of such documents. In the Covenant killer case, the federal agency sent a memo to the Nashville PD “strongly” discouraging the disclosure of so-called “legacy tokens” left behind by mass shooters. The memo was sent just two days after Star News Digital Media filed a federal lawsuit against the FBI demanding the agency release the trans killer’s writings. As former national political editor at the Star News Network, I, too, am a plaintiff in that lawsuit, plodding in federal court for the better part of two years.
The memo explains that mass shooters “often leave behind items [memory tokens] to claim credit for the attack and/or articulate the motivation behind it.” The 90 pages the Tennessee Star published include a wealth of insight from a severely mentally ill 28-year-old woman who identified as a male named Aidan.
As the Star reported, the FBI recommended withholding such items from the public, citing concerns about “conspiracy theories,” copycat attacks, and advancing “the false narrative that the majority of attackers are mentally ill.”
“The FBI also raised the ‘existing precedent’ for the destruction of ‘legacy tokens,’ noting ‘the decision to destroy the ‘Basement Tapes’ produced by the offenders of the Columbine High School attack,’” the publication reported.
Leahy notes the memo also argues that releasing manifestos and other legacy tokens could have negative impacts on “certain vulnerable communities.” The Biden administration has joined LGBT activists in painting the trans population as under the constant threat of violence.
Madison’s police chief on Monday repeatedly thanked the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for their quick response and assistance at the Christian school.
“In this instance it appears to me the FBI may have done the same thing in Madison that they did in Nashville in 2023, that is swoop in and take control of information and refuse to release it,” Leahy said.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
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