First responders in Madison, Wisconsin, were participating in a training session on Monday morning when a school shooting occurred nearby, authorities said.
A student and teacher were killed and six others were injured when a teenage student opened fire at Abundant Life Christian School, a private Christian school serving approximately 250 families on the city's East Side, said Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes. The shooter was found dead by authorities, police said.
Barnes said the shooting occurred around 10:57 a.m. CT, while medics with the Madison Police Department's Special Events Team were in a session at the department's training center — less than three miles away. The SET Medics Team consists of about 16 team members, including several who have worked or volunteered in Emergency Medical Services, according to the city of Madison website.
"They left the training center immediately and came down here and doing in real time what they were actually practicing for," he said. "And that's why training is so important, and making sure that we can provide the best possible training and the best possible response for our community members."
The police chief said training for such events occurs "constantly," noting fire and police commanders participated in a separate training session within the past two weeks.
"And so all of that came into play today, and our officers performed extremely well based on their training and based on the expectations that they know exactly what to do," Barnes said. "Stop the threat, stop the killing, find the threat."
Training for mass incidents is something "we had hoped we would never have to put into practice one more time," Madison Fire Chief Chris Carbon said.
A possible motive for the shooting remained unclear late Monday afternoon.
According to Barnes, police were working to find out “as many answers as we can” while interviewing witnesses and securing search warrants to obtain additional information.
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"Many of you have asked me about the why of this," the police chief said. "Why did this happen? What do we know? What was the motivation? I do not know, but I will tell you this, our detectives are working hard in the investigative process to find out as many answers as we can so that we can further prevent these things from happening, not only in this community, but in other communities around our country."
