Sirens, Then an Excruciating Wait for School Families

On Monday morning, a chilling message echoed through the intercom at Abundant Life Christian School: “Lockdown. This is not a drill.”

Teachers quickly ushered students out of sight, as one sixth-grader, Breken Ives, remembered. There were loud bangs and screams. “Everyone started panicking,” Ives recalled.https://wordpress.com/

Minutes later, the sirens began wailing.

“Police car after police car,” said John Diaz de Leon, a retired man in his 60s who lives nearby in Madison, Wisconsin. He quickly went outside to see what was causing the swarm of squad cars in what was usually a quiet neighborhood on Buckeye Road.

It would take several hours before the public learned the full extent of the situation, which police later shared in a series of press conferences. Among the details was the revelation that the shooter was a student at the small private school. Tragically, a teacher and another student had been killed, and six others were injured.

Diaz de Leon, who had been listening to a police scanner, overheard the terms “triage” and “D.O.A.” (dead on arrival). Outside the school, he saw two officers, guns drawn, accompanied by a police dog. Soon after, groups of students began to run out of the building, some without coats and holding hands.

Parents from all over Madison began rushing toward the school. Mike Brube, a father, was at work just a few blocks away when he saw police cars speeding past with sirens blaring.

He drove directly to the school, where his seventh-grader, Angel, had attended since childhood. “The school is Christian, it’s like a family,” said Brube.

Viktoriya Gonzales was one of the parents who anxiously waited near the school, hoping to be reunited with her child. Some students were held back to speak with officers as the investigation unfolded.

Gonzales had learned from other students that her 12-year-old son was safe but “severely traumatized” because he had been close to the shooter. “That’s all I know,” she said, her voice strained with concern.