A teenager opened fire in his school in Madison, in the north of the United States, on Monday, killing two people and wounding six others before being found dead, according to the authorities, in yet another tragedy in a country regularly plunged into mourning by school killings.
‘Three people are dead, including the suspected shooter’, said Shon Barnes, the police chief of this Midwestern town. The suspect, whose age and gender he would not reveal, was a ‘teenage student’ at the private Abundant Life Christian School.
The two deceased victims were a teacher and a pupil, Mr Barnes told a press conference, adding that two of the six injured pupils were between life and death.
In a statement, outgoing President Joe Biden described the shooting as ‘shocking’ and ‘senseless’. He urged Congress to ‘act’ to pass more restrictive laws in a country with more individual firearms than inhabitants.
‘There are no words to describe the desolation and pain we feel today’, said Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers in a statement published on X.
At 10.57am local time on Monday, Madison police were alerted to a shooting in progress at the Abundant Life private Christian school, which caters for nearly 400 students from nursery to high school.
‘The shooter was dead when we arrived’, said Shon Barnes, adding that a “handgun” had been found and that the police had not opened fire. The shooting took place in a single area of the school: ‘I don't know if it was in a classroom or in a corridor’, said the police chief.
‘We have secured the school, there are no other threats or dangers to the community’, he said, adding that he did not yet know the suspect's motives.
‘This is truly a sad day for Madison and for our country,’ said Shon Barnes.
‘I think we could all agree that enough is enough,’ said Barnes, who began his career as a teacher before becoming a police officer.
‘I think we need to do a better job in our country and our community to prevent gun violence,’ said Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway.
‘I hoped this day would never come to Madison’, lamented the Democratic mayor.
The repeated school shootings are causing a stir in public opinion in the United States, a country that is paying a very heavy price for the spread of firearms and the ease with which people have access to them.
‘From Newton to Uvalde, from Parkland to Madison, for many other shootings that don't attract attention - it is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence’, criticised President Joe Biden.
In September, a 14-year-old teenager killed four people, two pupils his own age and two teachers, when he opened fire at his secondary school in Georgia.
In 2012, a madman shot dead 26 people, including 20 children aged six and seven, at Sandy Hook Primary School in Newton, Connecticut.
Such a traumatic event was repeated in May 2022 when an 18-year-old man shot dead 19 pupils and two teachers at a primary school in Uvalde, Texas. Between these two tragedies, a massacre committed at a Florida high school in Parkland on 14 February 2018 triggered a vast national movement, spearheaded by young people, to demand stricter regulation of individual weapons in the United States. Without really moving the lines.
With AFP.
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