WASHINGTON - A 15-year-old female student was identified by police as the assailant in a school shooting in the US state of Wisconsin that left three people dead, including the shooter.
"The shooter has now been identified as (a) 15-year-old," police chief Shon Barnes of the state capital Madison told reporters.
"She was a student at the school, and evidence suggests she died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound," he added.
Shon Barnes, police chief in the state capital Madison, told a news conference that a teacher and a teenage student died at the Abundant Life Christian School, a private religious school for children aged five to 18.
Two students were being treated for life-threatening injuries, while three others and a teacher were taken to hospital in a non-critical condition.
A handgun was recovered at the scene, Barnes said, adding that the suspect's family was cooperating with the police investigation.
Monday's violence is the latest in a long line of school shootings in the United States, where guns outnumber people and attempts to restrict access to firearms face perennial political deadlock.
Underlining the commonplace nature of mass shootings, the police chief said some medical personnel responding to Abundant Life came directly from training for such an event.
"I think we can all agree that enough is enough," Barnes told reporters.
"We have to come together to do everything we can to support our students, to prevent press conferences like these from happening again and again and again."
US President Joe Biden condemned the shooting as "shocking and unconscionable" and said the tragedy underscored yet again the need for tighter gun laws.
"It is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence. We cannot continue to accept it as normal," he said in a statement.
"We need Congress to act. Now."