WI - Madison, school shooting at Abundant Life Christian School 16 Dec 2024

[Betty P]

What Natalie Rupnow's social media shows before Wisconsin...

Posts and pictures from Natalie Rupnow and her father's social media accounts show some details of her life prior to the shooting.

www.newsweek.com

I’ve seen the purported manifesto, just by googling around, but nothing from MSM.

However, this article from Newsweek shows what it claims is the picture she took in the school bathroom just prior to shooting.

IMO very sinister and eerie yet so heartbreaking.

Not familiar with social media, are 933 followers if she just joined this month a lot or a little?

TIA

View attachment 552228

Is that the sign for white supremacy? Sure looks like it. Appalling.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/26/us/adl-new-hate-symbols/index.html

 

[Stunned]

OMG, I lived within two miles of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and I remember very well going through a training session on if you hear the siren, to get under your desk.

Try living and and going to school in Miami during the Cuban missile crisis!

 

[Trino]

Wow, and I've already texted that it was a second grader who made the 911 call. Dang.

Mistake by media. It was a second grade TEACHER who made the call. Numerous corrections online.

 

[Trino]

Natalie ‘Samantha’ Rupnow’s motive remains elusive in fatal Abundant Life Christian School shooting

Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said Monday’s shooting at a Christian school in Wisconsin was the result of “a combination of factors,” but did not divulge additional information…

nypost.com

-“There are always signs of a school shooting before it occurs,” the police chief said.

“We’re looking into her online activity,” he said of Rupnow. “We’re asking for anyone who knew her or may have insight into her feelings leading up to yesterday’’ to come forward.

“On the question of bullying, we’re talking to students to understand whether bullying was one of those multiple factors that I mentioned earlier,” he said.

Barnes said the department is still working to determine the authenticity of a “manifesto” widely circulating online that’s been attributed to the shooter.

If there are always signs, why didn't someone see/understand the signs?

 

[airportwoman]

If there are always signs, why didn't someone see/understand the signs?

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

 

[KMouse]

Yes. You wear the shirt but to a gun range? Seems to imply she had an agenda. Just an opinion.

I have a shirts/hoodies for bands that I like that probably result in some side eye from people. It's a bit odd that a young teenager knows who KMDFM are since they are a band that has been around for decades. However I am not going to read much into it.

 

[iamshadow21]

If there are always signs, why didn't someone see/understand the signs?

Because so much of teenage behaviour looks the same from the outside and is not inherently pathological except in retrospect.

Plenty of kids get bullied.
Plenty of kids have crappy childhoods or families.
Plenty of kids struggle with mental health, self esteem, and anger.
Plenty of kids play video games, watch movies, listen to music, consume books or comics or roleplay games that contain violence or dark imagery.
Plenty of kids hate school or their teachers.
Plenty of kids try out identities, fandoms, ideologies, and belief systems.
Plenty of kids have violent thoughts and frustrations around what they feel are the major, intractable problems in their lives.

Very of those few kids decide to murder people and follow through.

MOO

 

[Tabulator]

I have not read a lot of information on the shooter, but the little I have learned leads me to believe she was angry and a pretty messed up individual. In my opinion, one thing does not cause a teenager to shoot up her school. A band or certain kind of music does not cause it and neither do video games.
Whatever her "reasons" for doing this awful act, I believe it will never make any sense to most reasonable people.

Just what I am thinking about... A t-shirt or a video game did not make this girl kill a classmate, a teacher, or herself.

 

[stg]

I have a shirts/hoodies for bands that I like that probably result in some side eye from people. It's a bit odd that a young teenager knows who KMDFM are since they are a band that has been around for decades. However I am not going to read much into it.

It’s interesting what music kids get into. I have a thirteen-year-old daughter who likes The Cure and Oingo Boingo, and loves The Beatles. She discovered them all on her own, though I am a big Cure fan myself. I don’t know if we will ever learn if the perpetrator here was actually a KMFDM fan or was emulating someone like Eric Harris. I am curious about it, though I don’t blame the artist for what happened.

 

[INfisherman]

If there are always signs, why didn't someone see/understand the signs?

Because devices are the modern babysitters this day & age while the parent(s) do whatever they’re doing. It started generations ago with toys, then video games then PCs & now it’s cell phones & tablets or a mixture of those.

Many parents have zero clue what their kids are doing online & many teens would see it as the end of the world if a parent demanded to see their devices - would be like going through a desk or dresser, etc. - appalling to a teen when the reality of it is it’s for their own protection/benefit. <modsnip - manifesto has not been verified> of the world through bullying alone. Throw in the new age sense of entitlement & you have a pretty good recipie for rage at some point. Obviously neither parent was privy as to what she was potentially reading or posting online.

JMO

 

[Trino]

Because so much of teenage behaviour looks the same from the outside and is not inherently pathological except in retrospect.

Plenty of kids get bullied.
Plenty of kids have crappy childhoods or families.
Plenty of kids struggle with mental health, self esteem, and anger.
Plenty of kids play video games, watch movies, listen to music, consume books or comics or roleplay games that contain violence or dark imagery.
Plenty of kids hate school or their teachers.
Plenty of kids try out identities, fandoms, ideologies, and belief systems.
Plenty of kids have violent thoughts and frustrations around what they feel are the major, intractable problems in their lives.

Very of those few kids decide to murder people and follow through.

MOO

Wish I could go back to a kid in my class who was definitely bullied, and I said nothing. First to die in our graduating class - suicide. Makes me wonder if there were days he considered shooting up the school or if anyone cared to find out.

 

[airportwoman]

I have a shirts/hoodies for bands that I like that probably result in some side eye from people. It's a bit odd that a young teenager knows who KMDFM are since they are a band that has been around for decades. However I am not going to read much into it.

Maybe her parents listened to them?

 

[airportwoman]

Because devices are the modern babysitters this day & age while the parent(s) do whatever they’re doing. It started generations ago with toys, then video games then PCs & now it’s cell phones & tablets or a mixture of those.

Many parents have zero clue what their kids are doing online & many teens would see it as the end of the world if a parent demanded to see their devices - would be like going through a desk or dresser, etc. - appalling to a teen when the reality of it is it’s for their own protection/benefit. <modsnip - manifesto has not been verified> Throw in the new age sense of entitlement & you have a pretty good recipie for rage at some point. Obviously neither parent was privy as to what she was potentially reading or posting online.

JMO

Or maybe they DID know, and were trying to get her away from a tempting environment - and yet it was still too late?

 

[iamshadow21]

Wish I could go back to a kid in my class who was definitely bullied, and I said nothing. First to die in our graduating class - suicide. Makes me wonder if there were days he considered shooting up the school or if anyone cared to find out.

I think that as much as someone showing care and concern for a person in your life is important, a single person shouldn't feel responsible through inaction for a suicidal person completing suicide. However they do it, whether it's a solitary act or a mass casualty event like this one. I say that as someone who had a very bad childhood and highschool experience and lives with complex mental health. I have been suicidal, and I have lost a friend to suicide in the last couple of years.

It's a very complex thing, what leads a person to that point. And I think whatever we hear about this case is going to be very one dimensional. We're never going to know exactly why or what this girl thought or felt that got her to this point, regardless of what records she may have left behind, because we're not her, to put it bluntly. And because she's dead, we can't ask her. And even if we could ask her, she possibly couldn't verbalise exactly why.

It's not a situation with any suicide that you can point and say 'well, there's your problem!', and pinpoint the one simple thing that unlocks and explains everything. Because people are complex and multifaceted and contradictory.

MOO

 

[BeginnerSleuther]

If there are always signs, why didn't someone see/understand the signs?

Because everything is always clear in retrospect. The truth is, no one is psychic. Plenty of people lead parallel lives to most school shooters and never harm a soul. None of us can predict who will or won't become a shooter until objective facts come to light. Most of the time, that isn't until the crime has already occurred. MOO

 

[INfisherman]

Or maybe they DID know, and were trying to get her away from a tempting environment - and yet it was still too late?

If they knew, and removed her access to devices, she was still posting to social media somehow.

 

[INfisherman]

@airportwoman

To be clear, I’m not implying my previous post was the only reason signs of something being amiss with kids are overlooked. Many times it’s "we" aren’t asking the right questions when talking with our kids. There are a few good responses I’d also agree with, which I didn’t mention. My initial response was due to me recalling something I’d observed in a fast food restaurant within the past week.

A parent sat at a table with 3 children, all easily younger than 5-6th grade, 2 I’d estimate to be younger than 2nd grade if even that old. All 3 kids were eating & watching something on their cell phones. The parent sat there eating. Zero conversation. That can become habitual.

JMO

 

[Arkay]

Natalie Rupnow's parents switched their custody arrangeme...

The parents of Natalie Rupnow, identified by police as the shooter at a school in Madison, adjusted their custody agreement in 2022.

www.newsweek.com

Newsweek gives some details about the parents’ custodial agreements and their marital history.

The parents divorced in 2014, so I presume when Natalie was around 5. Mother had primary custody.

The parents remarried in 2017 (to each other, not to new partners) and Natalie was the only child from the marriages of her parents to each other.

Divorced again in 2021. First equal custody, then in 2022 the father had primary custody.

 

[CrimeJunkie82]

<modsnip - manifesto has not been verified as authentic> My heart breaks for the families and the community. It is a shame that at the one place besides home, that a child should feel safe, has turned into something so horrible..

 

[SadieSeeks]

Are there any screenshots of any of her tumblr or X posts available?