Category: National

The first Harvard Law class admitted into the university since the Supreme Court effectively ended affirmative action at U.S. colleges last year is significantly less diverse, with a steep decline in Black and Hispanic student enrollment, according to data reported by The Harvard Crimson.

According to the data, which was reported to the American Bar Association, Harvard Law’s J.D. Class of 2027 includes 19 Black students, as opposed to 43 students the previous year – with enrollment dropping by more than half. Enrollment of Hispanic students also steeply declined, with 32 students admitted into the class of 2027, compared with 63 the previous year.

Meanwhile, enrollment of Asian students increased from 103 to 132 students in the class of 2027.

ABC News reached out to representatives at Harvard University and Harvard Law for comment and to learn the total student enrollment for the class of 2027, but requests were not immediately returned.

Jeff Neal, a spokesperson for Harvard Law, told ABC News in a statement on Tuesday that following the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last year, it was “understood that the decision would impact, in ways that could not be fully anticipated, the ability of educational institutions across the nation, including law schools, to attract and admit a diverse cohort of students.” But Neal added that conclusions that can be drawn from a single year of data are “necessarily limited.”

“We continue to believe that a student body composed of persons with a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences is a vital component of legal education,” Neal said. “Harvard Law School remains committed both to following the law and to fostering an on-campus community and a legal profession that reflect numerous dimensions of human experience.”

ABC News reached out to representatives of Harvard University for additional comment.

The ruling stemmed from two cases regarding the admissions programs at both Harvard and the University of North Carolina, where the court ruled in an opinion with a conservative majority that both programs violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented in the two cases, but Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented in only the UNC case – having served on the Board of overseers at Harvard, her alma mater – she recused herself in the final Harvard case vote.

Prior to the blockbuster ruling, affirmative action had been used by U.S. colleges and universities for decades to diversify campuses and address issues of inequality. Its constitutionality was repeatedly upheld by the Supreme Court prior to the June 2023 ruling, as long as a student’s race is only one of the factors that was considered during the admissions process.

According to the Harvard Crimson, the Supreme Court’s decision led to a change in Harvard Law School’s admissions process, where applicants were required to submit a “Statement of Purpose” and “Statement of Perspective” – as opposed to a personal statement – where they were asked to “share how your experiences, background, and/or interests have shaped you.”

Sean Wynn, President of the Harvard Black Law Students Association, shared a statement with ABC News on Tuesday on behalf of the HBLSA that emphasizes the historical contributions of Black J.D.’s in shaping Harvard Law, as well as the community’s notable contributions to the U.S. legal system.

“The African-American experience has always been intimately tied to the development of American law, often playing a role in both its most maligned and most revered moments. Making sense of this jarring corpus with a smaller community is a tall order in and of itself, made even more difficult with the added expectation that these students provide a ‘Black perspective’ in class discussions,” the statement added. “The demographic shift places significant pressure on those few Black students present to represent the Black community, in all its variety and complexity, during conversations about the law.”

The statement also called on Harvard law and law schools around the country to “take immediate action to ensure the democratization of legal education,” stating that the decline in Black student enrollment at the law school “has broken something fundamental about the experience of attending this law school.”

ABC News’ Devin Dwyer contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — President-elect Donald Trump slammed the judge in his criminal hush money case Tuesday, a day after the judge refused to dismiss Trump’s conviction on the grounds of presidential immunity.

New York Judge Juan Merchan on Monday rejected Trump’s request to vacate the verdict in the case based on the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision.

Trump had sought to dismiss his criminal indictment and vacate the jury verdict on the grounds that prosecutors, during the trial earlier this year, introduced evidence relating to Trump’s official acts as president that was inadmissible based on the Supreme Court’s subsequent ruling that Trump is entitled to presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts undertaken while in office.

“Acting Justice Juan Merchan has completely disrespected the United States Supreme Court, and its Historic Decision on Immunity,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Tuesday, calling Merchan’s ruling, without evidence, “completely illegal.”

Merchan, in his ruling, determined that the evidence in the case related “entirely to unofficial conduct” and “poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch.”

The judge “wrote an opinion that is knowingly unlawful, goes against our Constitution, and, if allowed to stand, would be the end of the Presidency as we know it,” Trump wrote in his post.

Trump was found guilty in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.

Judge Merchan has postponed Trump’s sentencing indefinitely following Trump’s reelection last month.

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(NEW YORK) — Luigi Mangione has been indicted in New York for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the grand jury has upgraded charges to first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Mangione, 26, is also charged with: two counts of second-degree murder, one of which is charged as killing as an act of terrorism; two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree; four counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree; one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree; and one count of criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree.

The slaying in the heart of Midtown Manhattan was “intended to evoke terror,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said at a news conference.

Mangione is accused of gunning down Thompson outside a hotel on Dec. 4 as the CEO headed to an investors conference.

“This type of premeditated, targeted gun violence cannot and will not be tolerated,” Bragg said in a statement Tuesday.

In Pennsylvania, where Mangione remains in custody, he faces charges including allegedly possessing an untraceable ghost gun.

He is expected to waive extradition from Pennsylvania during his next court appearance on Thursday, sources said.

Mangione has hired Karen Friedman Agnifilo as his lawyer in New York. She was a 25-year veteran of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and its second in command for eight years.

Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Dec. 9 after nearly one week on the run.

When Mangione was apprehended, he had a 9 mm handgun with a 3D-printed receiver, a homemade silencer, two ammunition magazines and live cartridges, prosecutors said.

Thompson’s murder ignited online anger at the health insurance industry. Many people online have celebrated the suspect and some have donated to a defense fund for Mangione.

“There is no heroism in what Mangione did. This was a senseless act of violence,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at Tuesday’s news conference.

“Any attempt to rationalize this is vile, reckless and offensive to our deeply held principles of justice,” she said.

“Just a cold-blooded, horrible killing,” President-elect Donald Trump said at a news conference Monday.

“It’s really terrible that some people seem to admire him, like him,” Trump said.

“It seems that there’s a certain appetite for him. I don’t get it,” Trump added.

Sources said writings police seized from Mangione suggest he was fixated on UnitedHealthcare for months and gradually developed a plan to kill the CEO.

Among the writings recovered from Mangione was a passage that allegedly said, “What do you do? You whack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention,” according to law enforcement officials.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(MADISON, Wis.) — The 15-year-old girl alleged to have shot seven victims, two fatally, in an attack on Monday at a Wisconsin Christian school marks the rare occurrence of a female school shooter, according to data from the FBI and U.S. Secret Service.

Police identified the suspect in the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison as Natalie Rupnow, a student at the school who went by the name Samantha.

After allegedly killing a teacher and a classmate, and leaving five others injured, including two students in critical condition, Rupnow died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police.

“It’s a very sad but a rare thing to have a female school shooter,” said Don Mihalek, a retired senior special agent for the Secret Service and an ABC News contributor. “Historically, and the studies show, that typically it’s a white male student or former student that ends up committing these acts of violence in schools.”

The U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) studied 41 incidents of targeted school violence incidents between 2008 and 2017, including those where no one was injured, and found that 83% of the suspects were male and 17% were female.

Another study by the FBI found that of the 49 shooters involved in 48 active shooting incidents in the United States in 2023, 98% were male.

Among the perpetrators who committed school shootings in 2023 was 28-year-old Audrey Hale, who killed three students and three staff members at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, where authorities said she was once a student. Hale owned seven firearms, including three used in the shooting at the private school, according to police. Officials said that Hale was being treated for an unspecified emotional disorder. Hale was killed on the scene by two officers.

A police spokesperson told ABC News that Hale was assigned female at birth and pointed to a social media account linked to Hale that included the use of the pronouns he/him.

An FBI review of 345 suspects involved in 333 active shooting incidents between 2000 and 2019, including 62 that occurred in educational environments, 332 were male and 13 were female.

The Gun Violence Archive, a website that tracks all shootings in the United States, found that of the 805 school shooting incidents since 2012, 157 involved female “participants.”

The National Center for Education Statistics also found that 94% of the active shooters in education settings between 2000 and 2022 were male.

Madison police investigators have not yet suggested a motive for Monday’s school shooting nor have they said whether the victims were specifically targeted.

The suspect’s parents are cooperating with the investigation, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes told ABC News.

Students in kindergarten through 12th grade attend the Christian school. Police said the shooting was contained to “a classroom in a study hall full of students from multiple grade levels.”

Police have also yet to say where the suspect got her hands on the handgun used in the shooting.

“In almost all of these situations, the students that have access to weapons have generally accessed them from parents, family,” Mihalek said.

Mihalek said one of the few female active shooters in recent years that he could recall was Portia Odufuwa, then 37, who opened fire inside Dallas’ Love Field Airport in 2022 before she was shot and wounded by police. No one else was injured in the shooting and Odufuwa was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2023 on charges of aggravated assault.

Other female active shooters include Jennifer San Marco, a former U.S. Postal employee who in January 2006 shot and killed six people at a mail processing and distribution center near Santa Barbara, California, after killing her neighbor, according to police. San Marco died from suicide.

In 2015, Tashfeen Malik, 29, and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, who had both pledged support for ISIS, fatally shot 14 people at a December 2015 holiday party in San Bernardino, California. Malik and Farook were killed in a shootout with police.

Mihalek said investigators are likely combing through the social media footprint of the suspect in the Wisconsin school shooting as they search for a motive.

“I think there’s a lot of stuff on social media that is creating these mental health crises within kids, especially girls,” Mihalek said. “Now, instead of finding your self-worth in good grades, doing well on a sports team, playing a musical instrument well, teachers and parents telling you ‘good job,’ it’s how many likes, how many people are viewing your feed.”

Mihalek said that a lot of girls have been the victims of online bullying.

“It’s tearing apart a kid’s fabric and a lot of them don’t know how to handle it because they’re not really capable at these young ages to understand how to handle a bullying incident like that,” Mihalek said. “In all schools, the key is homing in on behaviors and the pathways to violence. The critical behaviors that put kids on a pathway to violence are social stressors and grievances. If you’re being cyberbullied and told you’re no good online by multiple people, that can easily become a grievance.”

ABC News’ Jack Date and Briana Stewart contributed to this report.

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(MADISON, Wis.) — Officials are trying to determine why a 15-year-old girl allegedly opened fire at her school, Abundant Life Christian School, on Monday morning, killing a fellow student and teacher in a heinous crime that shocked the community of Madison, Wisconsin.

The motive appears to be a combination of factors, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said at a news conference Tuesday.

Police are talking to students to determine if bullying was one of the factors, he said.

“Everyone was targeted in this incident and everyone was put in equal danger,” Barnes said.

The suspect, Natalie Rupnow, who went by Samantha, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. Officers did not fire their weapons.

Two students were hospitalized in critical condition with life-threatening injuries, police said, while another three students and a teacher suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

The suspect’s parents are cooperating with the investigation, Barnes told ABC News on Tuesday.

“They were cooperative. Despite this tragedy, they still lost a child. They still lost a member of their family,” Barnes said. “It is certain that they have probably more questions than anyone because they knew her. They lived with her and so we wanted to get an account from them of what kind of child she was.”

Her father is being questioned by investigators, Barnes said. He said he didn’t know whether the mother had been questioned, noting that she’s been out of town.

Students in kindergarten through 12th grade attend the Christian school. Police said the shooting was in a classroom during a study hall “full of students from multiple grade levels.”

“I was in the hallway, and I was changing from my shoes to my boots to go to lunch because I have recess after, but then I heard the shooting and screams,” a girl in second-grade told Chicago ABC station WLS.

A second grade teacher called 911 at 10:57 a.m., Barnes said.

Police initially said on Monday it was a second grade student called 911; on Tuesday, Barnes amended that to a teacher.

In the wake of Monday’s shooting, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are urging elected officials to combat gun violence.

Biden in a statement called the shooting “shocking and unconscionable,” and he mentioned his administration’s efforts to combat the gun violence epidemic in the U.S., including the implementation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

Biden asked Congress to pass “commonsense” gun safety laws, including universal background checks, a national red flag law, and a ban on both assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

“It is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence,” Biden said, adding, “We cannot continue to accept it as normal.”

“It’s another school shooting, another community being torn about and torn apart by gun violence,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in remarks Tuesday. “And of course, our nation mourns for those who were killed, and we pray for the recovery of those who are injured and for the entire community.”

Harris, who played a role in the Biden administration’s efforts to combat gun violence, stressed, “We as a nation must renew our commitment to end the horror of gun violence, both mass shootings and everyday gun violence that touches so many communities in our nation.”

“We must end it, and we must be committed to have the courage to know that solutions are in hand, but we need elected leaders to have the courage to step up and do the right thing,” she said.

ABC News’ Briana Stewart and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Donald Trump’s lawyers are urging the New York judge in his criminal hush money case to throw out his conviction based on unsworn allegations of “grave juror misconduct” that prosecutors have described as vague and “seemingly inaccurate.”

While Trump’s lawyers argued the claims illustrate “the manifest unfairness of these proceedings,” Judge Juan Merchan criticized Trump’s lawyers for making claims consisting “entirely of unsworn allegations” and for opposing a hearing that would allow the allegations to be vetted.

“Allegations of juror misconduct should be thoroughly investigated. However, this Court is prohibited from deciding such claims on the basis of mere hearsay and conjecture,” wrote Merchan, largely rejecting the claims unless Trump’s attorneys provide sworn statements or consent to a hearing on the matter.

Trump’s claims were included in court filings unsealed on Monday, but the specific allegations were redacted.

Defense lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove — who Trump last month nominated to top positions in the Department of Justice — claimed to have uncovered evidence of juror misconduct that calls into question what they call the “dubious validity of the highly suspect verdicts rendered by the jury.”

Trump was found guilty in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.

Judge Merchan has yet to sentence Trump, who has been seeking to have the case dismissed on the grounds of presidential immunity following his reelection last month.

Trump’s lawyers, citing presidential immunity and other ongoing litigation, told Merchan they oppose a hearing examining their claims of juror misconduct, and instead asked the judge to weigh the claims as he considers Trump’s pending motion to throw out the case.

“This behavior is completely unacceptable, and it demonstrates without question that the verdicts in this case are as unreliable as DA Bragg’s promise to protect Manhattanites from violent crime,” the defense lawyers said, referring to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case.

Prosecutors argued in a filing that the jury misconduct claims are vague and untested, and that Trump’s lawyers declined to include a sworn declaration. They wrote that the alleged source of the claims directly told Trump’s lawyers that their summary of the allegations “contains inaccuracies and does not contain additional information that I never shared,” and that they declined to sign a sworn affidavit.

“Defendant cannot short-circuit this process by insisting that this Court treat his unsworn and seemingly inaccurate allegations of jury misconduct as true,” prosecutors said.

Prosecutors alleged that Trump’s lawyers are avoiding the proper mechanism to evaluate the claims by inserting them into the public domain while “opposing any endeavor to properly evaluate them.”

“Defendant does not want to participate in a hearing designed to evaluate these claims. He wants instead to use these unsworn, untested claims by his attorneys to undermine public confidence in the verdict,” their filing said.

Judge Merchan largely sided with prosecutors, declining to consider the claims unless Trump’s lawyers specifically move to vacate the verdict due to allegations of juror misconduct based on sworn allegations or evaluated through a hearing, which they so far have not done. Merchan still allowed both sides to docket their filings with significant redactions.

“This Court finds that to allow the public filing of the letter without redactions and without the benefit of a hearing, would only serve to undermine the integrity of these proceedings while simultaneously placing the safety of the jurors at grave risk,” Merchan wrote.

The exchange comes as the Merchan, on Monday, rejected Trump’s request to vacate the verdict in the case based on the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision.

Trump had sought to dismiss his criminal indictment and vacate the jury verdict on the grounds that prosecutors, during the trial earlier this year, introduced evidence relating to Trump’s official acts as president that was inadmissible based on the Supreme Court’s subsequent ruling that Trump is entitled to presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts undertaken while in office.

Merchan ruled that the evidence in the case related “entirely to unofficial conduct” and “poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch.”

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(SAN FRANCISCO) — A fellow tech executive was found guilty in a San Francisco courtroom on Tuesday for the murder of Cash App founder Bob Lee.

Prosecutors said Nima Momeni stabbed Lee three times with a kitchen knife after driving him to a secluded area in April 2023.

Defense attorneys for Momeni previously said he acted in self defense in response to an attempted assault by an intoxicated Lee. Momeni had pleaded not guilty.

Lee, a former executive at cryptocurrency firm MobileCoin, was killed in the early morning hours on April 4, 2023, in the San Francisco neighborhood of Rincon Hill, according to police.

At about 2 a.m., camera footage showed Lee and Momeni leaving Lee’s hotel and getting into Momeni’s car, a BMW Z4, prosecutors said in a court filing.

Video shows the BMW drive to a secluded and dark area where the two men got out of the car. Momeni “moved toward” Lee and the BMW drove away from the scene at high speed, according to the court document.

Prosecutors have alleged that Momeni killed Lee over the alleged sexual assault of Momeni’s sister by an acquaintance of Lee.

Paula Canny, the defense attorney for Momeni, said at a hearing in May that Lee’s death arose from a mix of self-defense and accidental harm.

“There was no premeditation,” Canny said.

On the witness stand last month, Momeni said Lee had attacked him in a fit of anger touched off by a joke. Momeni had teased Lee, saying that he would rather spend his last night in town with his family than going to a strip club, where the two were possibly headed, Momeni recounted.

In the scuffle that ensued, Momeni did not realize that Lee had been fatally injured, said Momeni, the owner of an Emeryville, California-based company called Expand IT.

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(NEW YORK) — Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is expected to waive extradition when he appears in court in Pennsylvania on Thursday, sources told ABC News.

In Pennsylvania, Mangione faces charges including allegedly possessing an untraceable ghost gun.

In New York, he faces charges including second-degree murder. Mangione has hired Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a former member of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, as his lawyer in New York.

His court appearance is set for 9 a.m. Thursday.

Mangione was apprehended at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Dec. 9 after nearly one week on the run. He’s accused of gunning down Thompson outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel on Dec. 4 as the CEO headed to an investors conference.

“Just a cold-blooded, horrible killing,” President-elect Donald Trump said at a news conference Monday.

Thompson’s murder ignited online anger at the health insurance industry. Many people online have celebrated the suspect and some have donated to a defense fund for Mangione.

“It’s really terrible that some people seem to admire him, like him,” Trump said.

“It seems that there’s a certain appetite for him. I don’t get it,” Trump added.

Sources said writings police seized from Mangione suggest he was fixated on UnitedHealthcare for months and gradually developed a plan to kill the CEO.

Among the writings recovered from Mangione was a passage that allegedly said, “What do you do? You whack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention,” according to law enforcement officials.

Neither Mangione nor his parents received insurance through UnitedHealthcare, the company said.

FBI agents and NYPD detectives spoke to Mangione’s mother the day before his Dec. 9 arrest after San Francisco police informed them she had filed a missing persons report and Mangione’s photo seemed to match the suspect photo, law enforcement sources told ABC News. Mangione’s mother told the New York investigators that the person in the widely shared surveillance images could be her 26-year-old son, sources said.

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(NEW YORK) — Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann has been charged with a seventh murder: the death of Valerie Mack, whose remains were first found 24 years ago, according to a superseding indictment unsealed Tuesday.

A hunter’s dog discovered Mack’s decapitated body in a wooded area of Manorville on Long Island on Nov. 19, 2000. Her remains were bound with rope inside a black plastic bag which was wrapped with duct tape, according to a bail application that accompanied the new indictment.

Both of her hands had been severed from her body and one of her legs was cut off, the document said.

The rest of Mack’s remains were found more than a decade later, in April 2011, along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach, authorities said.

Prosecutors said they linked Heuermann to Mack’s death in part through a mitochondrial DNA analysis of a female hair found on Mack’s body. It matched the profiles of Heuermann’s wife and daughter, the bail application said. At the time of Mack’s murder, Heuermann’s daughter would have been between 3 and 4 years old.

Prosecutors said they also linked Heuermann to Mack’s death through evidence recovered on some of the 350 electronic devices they seized from him that include his “significant collection of violent, bondage and torture pornography” dating back to at least 1994. This online collection included images of mutilation and tying up women with ropes, two things prosecutors said are consistent with injuries inflicted on Mack and how she was bound, officials said.

Investigators said they found one document that they believe Heuermann used to “plan out” his kills. The document was created in 2000, the year Mack was killed. Under a section named “supplies,” Heuermann allegedly listed “rope/cord,” “saw/cutting tools,” and “foam drain cleaner.” Under a section labeled “DS,” believed to stand for “dump site,” Heuermann allegedly listed one of the locations where Mack’s remains were found, officials said.

The document also included a “body prep” section with a note to “remove head and hands,” according to the bail application.

Heuermann, 61, is charged with one count of second degree murder in connection with Mack’s death.

He appeared in court on Tuesday shackled in a suit and told the judge, “Your honor, I am not guilty of any of these charges.”

Judge Timothy Mazzei continued to hold Heuermann without bail.

The defense was given until next month to file motions related to evidence. The defense has questioned the DNA methods prosecutors used and may try to limit admissibility at trial. The defense is also considering whether to ask the judge to sever any of the murder charges from others.

The New York architect was initially arrested in July 2023.

Heuermann has pleaded not guilty in the murders of six other women: Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Costello, Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla. The first victim was found in 1993 and the last victims were found in 2010.

Heuermann has pleaded not guilty in the murders of six women: Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Costello, Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla. The first victim was found in 1993 and the last victims were found in 2010.

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(MADISON, Wis.) Officials are trying to figure out why a 15-year-old girl allegedly opened fire at the Christian school she attended, killing a fellow student and teacher in a heinous crime that shocked the community of Madison, Wisconsin.

The suspect, Natalie Rupnow, who went by Samantha, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound before officers reached Abundant Life Christian School on Monday morning, police said. Officers did not fire their weapons.

Two students were hospitalized in critical condition with life-threatening injuries, police said, while another three students and a teacher suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Police have not yet suggested any motive for the attack nor said whether they believe the victims were specifically targeted.

The suspect’s parents are cooperating with the investigation, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes told ABC News on Tuesday.

“They were cooperative. Despite this tragedy, they still lost a child. They still lost a member of their family,” Barnes said. “It is certain that they have probably more questions than anyone because they knew her. They lived with her and so we wanted to get an account from them of what kind of child she was.”

Her father is being questioned by investigators, Barnes said. He said he didn’t know whether the mother had been questioned, noting that she’s been out of town.

Students in Kindergarten through 12th Grade attend the Christian school. Police said the shooting was contained to “a classroom in a study hall full of students from multiple grade levels.”

“I was in the hallway, and I was changing from my shoes to my boots to go to lunch because I have recess after, but then I heard the shooting and screams,” a girl in second-grade told ABC Chicago station WLS.

A second-grader also made the 911 call, Barnes said.

“Let that soak in for a minute,” Barnes added. “A second-grade student called 911 at 10:57 a.m. to report a shooting at school.”

President Joe Biden called the shooting “shocking and unconscionable” and called on Congress to act immediately.

Biden urged Congress to pass “commonsense” gun safety laws, including universal background checks, a national red flag law, and a ban on both assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

“It is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence,” Biden said in a statement, adding, “We cannot continue to accept it as normal.”

Biden also mentioned his administration’s efforts to combat the gun violence epidemic in the U.S., including the implementation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, while stating that more needed to be done.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement, “There are no words to describe the devastation and heartbreak we feel,” calling the shooting a “gut-wrenching tragedy.”

Evers said he and his wife are “praying for the families and loved ones of those whose lives were so senselessly taken and for the educators, staff, and the entire Abundant Life school community.”

“It is unthinkable that a kid or an educator might wake up and go to school one morning and never come home,” he said. “This should never happen, and I will never accept this as a foregone reality or stop working to change it.”

ABC News’ Briana Stewart contributed to this report.

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