Hundreds of mourners attended two gatherings in Madison Tuesday night, one day after a teenage girl opened fire at her private Christian school, killing a fellow student, a teacher and herself.
The Boys and Girls Club of Dane County hosted a candlelight vigil outside the Wisconsin State Capitol in the center of Madison, while City Church held a prayer service next door to Abundant Life Christian School.
On Monday, that campus became the site of a school shooting that left three people dead, including the shooter, and sent six people to the hospital, two with life-threatening injuries.
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Outside the domed Capitol building, people used their hands to shelter candles from the wind and silently listened to singers and speakers, including Superintendent Joe Gothard of the Madison Metropolitan School District and Lindsay Broms of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Dane County.
In the crowd, Winnie Clifford, 13, stood with her mother and teared up as she called the shooting “unbelievable.”
“It makes me really sad for the parents and all the children who go to school who have to fear every single day about this happening,” Clifford said.
Nearby, Nadir Carlson of Madison held a candle.
“It’s just really sad,” Carlson said, becoming emotional. “Because I feel like so many people don’t want to make the changes necessary to prevent this.”
“I think we have to talk about what brings a young person to bring a gun to a school,” she said.
Siblings Kirsten and Aaron Martin attended the vigil together. Aaron said he had played Abundant Life in sports when growing up.
“We knew them. They were part of our community,” he said. “It feels more real, as opposed to seeing it on the TV, when it happens in your community.”
Miles east, cars backed up along Buckeye Road as hundreds of people made their way to City Church. Just one day earlier, that road had been blocked off as law enforcement responded to the shooting and families waited to be reunited with their children at a nearby health clinic.
On Tuesday night, mourners walked through the cold, past a sign for Abundant Life Christian School draped with yellow caution tape. A marquee featured a message about school athletics, a jarring reminder of the normal routine that was shattered.
Inside, worship leaders led prayers and songs about grief and salvation, saying their faith had not been shaken.
Several teachers from Abundant Life Christian School also spoke. Pastor Sarah Karlen, the school’s fine arts director and theater teacher, said people have posted cruel comments on the school’s social media page.
“Lord, we need healing, not just for ourselves, but we need healing for those who are in the hospital. We need healing for the families. We need healing for the students. We need healing for the staff,” she said.
Madison police have said they are still investigating the motives of the shooter, a 15-year-old student who died of a self-inflicted gunshot after killing a fellow student and a teacher. Six others were treated at a nearby hospitals after the shooting, and two remained in critical condition as of Tuesday afternoon.
The identities of the dead and injured have not been released.
Middle school teacher Lisa Haynie said she feels confused and overwhelmed.
“Our hearts waffle between being angry and being afraid and being filled with memories and trauma and, God, we just don’t know how to manage all of that,” she said.
Monday’s shooting in Madison is Wisconsin’s deadliest school shooting on record, and brings this year’s death toll of gun violence victims on school campuses in the United States to 13, according to The Washington Post.
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