So That’s Why Abundant Life Shooter’s Father was Charged

On Friday, I reported that the father of the Abundant Life Christian School shooter had been charged. That report was scant on details as to why he was charged specifically, only that he had been.

This may or may not be out of place in and of itself, but the idea of charging parents is troubling without a very good reason to do so.

I’m not sure if this is enough grounds for me to be comfortable with him being charged, but he definitely didn’t do everything right.

She saw humanity as a population of scum and filth, a world from which she lived apart. Then, on Dec. 16, she walked into Abundant Life Christian School, where she was a freshman, and fatally shot two people and wounded six others before taking her own life.

Madison police officers discovered her grim views of society, which sometimes veered into racism and bigotry, in a series of notebooks and a document titled, “War Against Humanity” and videos, according to a criminal complaint unsealed May 8. Police also found maps of Abundant Life, depicted as rough notepad sketches and cardboard dioramas.

And in interviews with her father, police learned the teenager had been given guns, despite a history of self-harm, suicidal ideation and obsession with past school shooters.

In addition to revealing the dark realm [killer’s name redacted] espoused, the criminal complaint shows a series of red flags that her father, Jeffrey Rupnow, either ignored or didn’t see. These high-risk behaviors, originally identified in June 2022 by Madison Police Department and communicated to Jeffrey Rupnow, offer a troubling lens into his daughter’s final years and the gaps in potential interventions.

…

She had a history of cutting herself, according to the criminal complaint. Jeffrey Rupnow admitted in his police interview Jan. 29 that, at some point, he locked up every knife in the house and at another time brought her to the emergency department, but he believed her cutting had waned as a result of therapy.

While she was in therapy for anxiety, depression, anger and self-harm, Jeffrey Rupnow gave his daughter a handgun as a Christmas present in 2023. He bought her a second handgun last summer.

Among the things Rupnow allegedly ignored were his daughter’s repeatedly stating her desire to harm herself in some manner. 

He says she saved up for the gun, that she wanted one of her own, and she paid for it, though it was still technically his in the eyes of the law, but doing so involved ignoring his daughter’s mental health struggles.

On the same token, it seems she was getting help. I get why he’d think that it would be alright, even if we now know any trust he placed in that therapy was unwarranted.

I still wouldn’t do it under the circumstances, but I can see why he might think it’s not a big deal.

So far, there’s been no mention of how the guns were stored.

Rupnow claims he locked up the knives in the house when his daughter started cutting herself, which suggests that he may have had the guns locked up, too, but somehow, she still got access to them.

If they were secured, I fail to see how buying her guns is the issue. Showing his daughter that he supported her is generally something we’d say was a good thing, and when a kid saves their money for something, telling them they can’t use it for that thing is a lot trickier than many might like to think. Especially if you’re like me and tell yourself that there’s no way the kid will save up that much money.

There are still a ton of questions left unasked, which is a problem if we’re going to wrap our head around these charges.

As it stands, I’m still less than thrilled by it.