Wisconsin shooting: Police chief shuts down speculation suspect was trans

The police chief investigating a school shooting in Wisconsin has urged people to stop speculating about the guilty person’s gender identity.

Police were called to the Abundant Life Christian School, in Wisconsin’s capital Madison on Monday morning (16 December) after a pupil opened fire, leaving one teacher and a teenaged pupil dead. Six others were injured.

The shooter, identified as 15-year-old student Natalie Rupnow, who went by the name Samantha, later died from a self-inflicted injury. This is at least the 83rd school shooting in the US this year, according to CNN.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday evening, Shon Barnes was asked about Rupnow’s gender identity.

“I don’t know whether [the shooter] was transgender or not,” he said. “I don’t think that whatever happened today has anything to do with how she or he or they may have wanted to identify. I wish people would leave their own personal biases out of this.

“Whether or not she was, he was, they were, transgender is something that may come out later but for what we’re doing right now, eight hours after a mass shooting, it is of no consequence.”

In recent months, right-wing pundits have used school shootings to push anti-trans narratives.

Transgender people make up a small proportion of the US population, about 1.3 million adults, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s behaviour risk factor surveillance system and youth risk behaviour survey. 

“With 0.6 per cent of the population, transgender people would expect to be involved in about one shooting,” an analysis by Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler revealed in March 2023.

Given the data available and the definition of a mass shooting as involving a minimum of four victims, trans people “would be expected to have committed at least 16 mass shootings since 2018”, he added.

“Instead, there are just three possible cases cited by conservatives.”

Investigators are still looking for a motive behind the shootings and it is unclear if the victims were targeted for a specific reason, chief Barnes said. The incident took place just before 11am, with a second-year pupil calling the police.

“Let that soak in for a minute,” Barnes said. “A second-grade student called 911 at 10.57am to report a shooting at school.”

President Joe Biden described the shootings as “shocking and unconscionable” and called on congress to take action on gun-control laws.

Referring to other mass shootings, he said: “From Newtown to Uvalde, Parkland to Madison, to so many other shootings that don’t receive attention, 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.

“Every child deserves to feel safe in their class room. Students across our country should be learning how to read and write, not having to learn how to duck and cover.”

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