RTL Today - Madison, Wisconsin: Shooter identified, with three dead and several injured

At least three people were killed Monday in a school shooting in the Midwest US state of Wisconsin, officials said, with the suspected shooter, a student, also found dead.

In Madison, the capital of the Midwestern state of Wisconsin, local police chief Shon Barnes told a press briefing that three people had died at the Abundant Life Christian School, a nondenominational Christian school with about 400 students.

Of the six wounded and hospitalized victims, two students remain in critical condition with life-threatening injuries, two people are in stable condition, and two have been discharged from hospital, the police chief said.

That figure included a 15 year-old minor who was suspected to have carried out the shooting, and died from a self-inflicted gun wound.

A spokeswoman during the briefing gave a revised figure of five dead and five injured, but the police department later clarified that those figures were not correct.

Police were alerted to the shooting shortly before 11:00 am (1700 GMT) after a call from a second grader (around age 7 or 8) to emergency services.

Police are still working to understand the motive of the shooting.

The White House said that President Joe Biden had been briefed on the shooting, while Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said he was "closely monitoring the incident."

"We are praying for the kids, educators, and entire Abundant Life school community as we await more information and are grateful for the first responders who are working quickly to respond," the governor said on X.

This year alone there has been over 487 mass shootings in the United States. US President Joe Biden stated that this demonstrates yet again the importance of tighter gun laws.

"It is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence. We cannot continue to accept it as normal," he said in a statement.