WASHINGTON, United States (AFP)— A student opened fire Monday at a school in the northern US state of Wisconsin, killing at least two people and injuring several others before apparently taking their own life, officials said.

Shon Barnes, police chief in the state capital Madison, told a press briefing that three people had died at the Abundant Life Christian School, a private Christian school with about 400 students.

That figure included a minor who was suspected to have carried out the shooting, he said, giving no details whether the victims were students, staff or others.

Seven people were transported to hospital with injuries ranging from minor to life threatening, he said.

Monday’s violent episode is the latest in a long line of school shootings in the United States, where guns outnumber people and attempts to restrict firearm access face perennial political deadlock.

Underlining the commonplace nature of mass shootings, Barnes said that some medical personnel responding to Abundant Life came directly from training for such an event.

Police were alerted to the shooting shortly before 11:00 am (1700 GMT).

“When officers arrived, they found multiple victims suffering from gunshot wounds” and also “located a juvenile who they believe was responsible for this, deceased in the building,” Barnes said.

“We believe the shooter was a student at the school,” he added, saying police officers “never fired their weapons.”

The White House said that President Joe Biden had been briefed on the shooting, while Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said he was “closely monitoring the incident.”

“We are praying for the kids, educators, and entire Abundant Life school community as we await more information and are grateful for the first responders who are working quickly to respond,” the governor said on X.

A police spokeswoman during Barnes’s briefing gave a revised figure of five dead and five injured, but the department later clarified that those figures were not correct.

This year, there have been at least 487 mass shootings — defined as a shooting involving at least four victims, dead or wounded — across the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

At least 15,998 people have been killed in firearms violence in the United States this year, according to the GVA.

In early September, a 14-year-old boy killed four people, including two students, at a high school in the state of Georgia, before being taken into custody.

Nineteen students and two teachers were shot dead in May 2022 when an 18-year-old gunman stormed their Uvalde, Texas elementary school and opened fire.