It is said that the 15-year-old student who shot and killed a student and teacher at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wis., earlier this week was in touch with a 20-year-old man from California who was planning a mass shooting at a government building.
A judge in California gave the man a restraining order late Tuesday night under the state’s gun red flag law. The order said he had to “turn his guns and ammunition into police within 48 hours unless an officer asks for them sooner because he poses an immediate danger to himself and others.”
What does he have to do with the shooter?
The Washington Post said that the man, named as Alexander Paffendorf from Carlsbad, California, was being held by the FBI. The judge’s restraining order said that FBI officials saw text messages between Paffendorf and the Wisconsin shooter, who was named Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, according to the Journal Sentinel.
The order, as reported by the Sentinel, said that Paffendorf told FBI agents that he had told Rupnow that he would plan to attack a government building with explosives and a gun.
The order didn’t say which building the man was supposed to attack or when he planned to do it, and it didn’t say anything about his contacts with Rupnow “other than to say that the man was planning a mass shooting with her.”
When asked about the California man, the Madison Police Department asked the FBI’s San Diego field office for comment, but they refused.
This comes as police in Madison, Wisconsin, continue to look into the killing on Monday that killed three people, including Rupnow.
The people who died were named by the Dane County Medical Examiner’s office as 14-year-old student Rubi Vergara and 42-year-old teacher Erin West. The autopsies show that both of them died from “homicidal firearm-related trauma,” according to the office of the medical examiner. According to the police, Rupnow killed himself with a gun.
Police still don’t know what led to the shooting on Monday, which they say happened in a study hall classroom with kids from different grades. Police found two guns at the school, one of which was the handgun they say Rupnow used in the attack.
The Madison Police Department said in a statement Wednesday that they are looking into Rupnow’s social media posts, her relationships with school kids, and her family in order to “learn about her behavior prior to Monday’s shooting.”
The statement also said, “Our team is looking to connect with anyone who may have interacted with Natalie Rupnow in the days and weeks leading up to the shooting.” It asked anyone with information to call the police.