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Police: Two Killed, Six Injured, Shooter Dead at WI K-12 School; Police Source: Teacher and Student Among Those Killed in Shooting; Rep. Shelia Stubbs (D-WI) Talks About the School Shooting in Abundant Life Christian School. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired December 16, 2024 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[15:01:08]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We are following breaking news and a tragedy out of Madison, Wisconsin. Police say that a gunman there killed at least two people at Abundant Life Christian School - it's a K through 12 school - and injured several more there. Authorities say the suspected shooter is believed to be a student at the 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.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 5-31 (ph), go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Got a call coming in at Abundant Life Christian Church, 49 on one for engine 5 and medic 5 for a shooter, just advising someone was shot.

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We are set to hear again from law enforcement with an update at just about any moment. Here is the Police Chief earlier today.

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CHIEF SHON BARNES, MADISON, WISCONSIN POLICE: Today is a sad, sad day, not only for Madison, but for our entire country, where 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.

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SANCHEZ: CNN Senior Crime and Justice Reporter, Shimon Prokupecz is following the latest developments. And, Shimon, I understand you just got off the phone with some officials, what are you hearing? SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: 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 when police arrived and emergency officials arrived, they started transporting victims to the hospital. And one of the people they transported was the shooter in this case.

And at this point, police are not in a position to identify even whether it's a male or 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 and really just bad shape, basically. No other way to really put that. But the doctors and the surgeons there are fighting to try and save some lives 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 a classroom. So 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.

[15:05:01]

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 lives.

KEILAR: Shimon, thank you so much for the update. And if you were just watching the screen and you saw that caravan of dogs walk 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're 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 Bryanna Fox. 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.

GREGG MCCRARY, FORMER FBI PROFILER: Yes, the trace will be to run the weapon down because they want to find out where that came from. I mean - and 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 a hold of it. But we'll, you know, we'll find out eventually exactly where that weapon come from. So that's one narrow piece of the investigation that's going on right now.

SANCHEZ: Ed, 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've 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?

MCCRARY: Right. Well, they don't want to put out anything prematurely, so they're doubling down. I mean, it could be that the shooter would 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.

KEILAR: Yes. And Ed, we saw 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. One of them - I'm sorry, did someone say something in my ear? No. All right. I heard something there.

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.

ED DAVIS, FORMER BOSTON POLICE COMMISSIONER: 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 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 also one focus is the command center that's set up.

And so all of the information is supposed to flow in there. And, 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.

SANCHEZ: Bryanan, 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?

BRYANNA FOX, FORMER FBI AGENT: Well, unfortunately, we - it seems like they know exactly who did it. The next questions are why and how.

[15:10:00]

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 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.

KEILAR: Yes, Bryanna, 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 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?

FOX: 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 these tragedies that have occurred where we have put into place these preventative measures and it wasn't sufficient to prevent the shooting from occurring. So I think doing more research on that to know which of these things are the most effective, 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 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. 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.

SANCHEZ: Everyone, please stand by as we gather more information awaiting this press conference scheduled by Madison Police. Much more in our breaking news ahead, stay with us.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, the tragedy of all - what the other kids have seen, the kids saw this and heard this, I mean, right before Christmas, how tough is that to live? And the parents - the parents - where are my kids? Where are my - they, you know, they - maybe they still don't know if their kid has survived. How tragic can that be?

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[15:18:10]

SANCHEZ: Breaking news to CNN, as we are following a deadly shooting at a school in Wisconsin, we now have details on the weapon that was used to kill at least two people, injure six others, and potentially take the shooter's own life.

KEILAR: We have CNN's Veronica Miracle with us with the latest here.

Veronica, what are you learning?

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris and Brianna, we understand that the shooter used a 9-millimeter pistol. That's according to our CNN's Josh Campbell. This is a gun that is pretty common and that is 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 9-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, 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 St. 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 buses. 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.

[15:20:05]

It 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 of deceased, but 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 9- millimeter pistol was used by the shooter. Boris, Brianna?

SANCHEZ: Veronica Miracle, thank you so much for that update.

We want to discuss the latest with Democratic Wisconsin State Representative, Shelia 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.

REP. SHELIA STUBBS (D-WI): Well, thank you, Brianna and Boris, for this interview. My heart and my prayers are with the students, with the staff, with the family 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 Fluttery (ph) and his congregation in this time of intense worry 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 community, 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.

KEILAR: And, you know, it used to be that 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 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?

STUBBS: 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 this situation and come together for healing.

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 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.

SANCHEZ: 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. 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.

STUBBS: Yes. 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, 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 in our state capitol and advocate for the safety of our kids in our schools.

We have to just end this senseless violence. And as a legislator who's put forth comments and 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. 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.

[15:25:09]

But again, today I want to focus on supporting the families and those that are directly affected by this tragedy. And I want our 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 Dr. Shon Barnes and his team for what they're doing to continue to update us. I'll be learning more at 2:30 today Central Time for the additional briefing and information.

But again, right now our community is hurting. Families are - they don't know what's 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. We need everyone to listen and those that are victims' voices need to be the loudest in the room.

SANCHEZ: Wisconsin State Representative Shelia Stubbs, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate you.

STUBBS: Thank you so much.

SANCHEZ: 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 microphones there at a makeshift podium. We're going to bring you these comments live as we get them. Stay with CNN.

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