Man, 20, in contact with Wisconsin school shooting suspect ‘planned attack on government building’
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A man who was in contact with a female student who opened fire at a private religious school in Wisconsin, killing two people before apparently taking her own life, has been arrested in the US.
A 20-year-old California man told the FBI he had been messaging Natalie Rupnow, 15, about attacking a government building with a gun and explosives, according to a restraining order issued under the state’s gun red flag law.
Under the order, a judge directed the man to give up his guns and ammunition within 48 hours because he posed an immediate danger to himself and others.
It was issued on Tuesday, the day after Rupnow opened fire at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, killing a student and teacher and injuring six others.
Two of the wounded are still in a critical condition.
The court documents do not name the man from California or say what building he targeted, when he planned to launch his attack, or what he and Rupnow discussed.
Rubi Patricia Vergara, 14, from Madison, was identified in an obituary published on Wednesday as the student killed in Monday’s attack.
Vergara was “an avid reader, loved art, singing and playing keyboard in the family worship band,” the obituary said.
The teacher who died was 42-year-old Erin Michelle West, the Dane County medical examiner said on Wednesday evening.
The school’s communication director Barbara Wiers said Vergara had been there since pre-school, while West worked there as a substitute teacher for three years before becoming an on-site substitute teacher.
A candlelight vigil for the victims was held in Madison on Tuesday. Pic: AP
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‘I’m very aware the world is like this’
Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said officers “may never know what she [Rupnow] was thinking that day”.
He added: “I do not know if she planned it that day or if she planned it a week prior. To me, bringing a gun to school to hurt people is planning. And so we don’t know what the premeditation is.”
Rupnow had two handguns, Chief Barnes said, but could not say how she obtained them and he declined to say who bought them because of the ongoing investigation.
Online court records show no criminal cases against her divorced parents, Jeffrey and Mellissa Rupnow.
Divorce records indicate that Natalie, who mostly lived with her father, was in therapy in 2022, but don’t say why.
The school shooting was the latest among dozens across the US in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut, Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas.
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But the Wisconsin shooting stands out because school shootings by teenage females have been extremely rare, with males in their teens and 20s carrying out the majority of them, David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database, said.
