Chris Gustaf and his daughter, Brooklyn, stood in the cold on the Capitol Square with two other family members after a Tuesday evening vigil for the victims of the Monday shooting at Abundant Life Christian School.
“I’m tired of people being sad,” said Chris when asked for comment. “They need to be mad.”
Brooklyn has grown up with school violence as a fact of life. During her freshman year at Purdue University, a student was stabbed to death in a dorm room. She remembers another time checking on a friend after an active shooter situation at Michigan State University. And when she was in high school in Michigan, the school went into a soft lockdown “because a kid showed up with a bulletproof vest.”
Now a student at UW-Madison, Brooklyn says she has become somewhat numb to the continuing violence.
“You see the headlines and it almost doesn’t invoke an emotional reaction in me anymore, because it’s so common that you’re just like, ‘Oh, man, that happened again. Well that sucks,’” she said. “Then you move on with your day, which is really, really shitty to say, because, you know, we should be feeling more about it, but it’s everywhere.”
A teacher and student were shot to death Dec. 16 at Abundant Life by a 15-year-old student, Natalie Rupnow, who then took her own life. Two more individuals were critically injured.
Hundreds attended the vigil where speakers included Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, Michael Johnson, CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Dane County, which organized the vigil, and Joe Gothard, superintendent of the Madison school district.
“We need to connect like we are tonight, each and every day, to make a commitment that we know we’re there for one another, hopefully to avoid preventable tragedies like the one that occurred yesterday,” Gothard said.
Abundant Life Christian School, a private school located on Buckeye Road, has around 390 students from kindergarten through high school, according to its website. The motive of Rupnow, who went by Samantha, is not yet known; the Madison Police Department is investigating a “combination of factors,” including the possibility of bullying, according to Police Chief Shon Barnes.
The shooting at Abundant Life was the 83rd school shooting in the U.S. this year, breaking the 82 recorded in 2023, according to CNN. It’s the eighth school shooting in Wisconsin since 2008; in May a student was killed by police officers as he tried to enter a Mount Horeb middle school with an air rifle.
Sam Keltner, head coach of the Monona Grove boys cross country team, brought several team members with him to the vigil to show their support for those affected by Monday’s school shooting. He spoke with his athletes after the shooting and they told him “they felt safe going into school today.”
Still, Monday’s tragedy “sucks,” Keltner said. “There’s no easy way to put it.”
Also at the rally was David Ruck, 32, who attended Abundant Life Christian School from kindergarten through his senior year, graduating in 2011. His brother and father are graduates as well. Ruck, who said he was “stunned” when he heard news of the shooting, recalls students who enrolled in the school after experiencing troubles at home or elsewhere.
“We had people that went there and they got help, and unfortunately, this is one student who just didn’t get that help,” Ruck said, referring to the school shooter.
The constant threat of gun violence has changed how society functions, Chris Gustaf said. He recalled how he almost walked out of a local Madison store recently with an unpaid Christmas present.
“The guy there said ‘We wouldn’t stop you because you don’t know who has a gun.’ Society has changed,” Gustaf said. “I think gun culture is a part of it.”
He wants lawmakers to remove legal shields for gun manufacturers and he’d like to see parents prosecuted for “giving their guns to children.”
“The people that are sitting in this white building and working here,” Gustaf said, looking at the state Capitol as the vigil’s crowd thinned out, “need to either deal with this, or they need to be gone.”
United Way of Dane County has established an emergency fund for the support of those affected by Monday’s shooting. All funds raised will go directly to Abundant Life Christian School. Those who wish to donate can visit unitedwaydanecounty.org or text Help4ALCS to 40403.
