Nationally, there have been 2,069 shootings on K-12 school properties from 1970-2022

Since 2000, shots have been fired 20 times on Wisconsin K-12 school grounds.

Those incidents include an incident in 2006 when nearby gunfire accidentally struck a Milwaukee student on a playground; a 17-year-old who died by suicide in a parking lot after school in Sheboygan in 2009; and a Milwaukee school employee's handgun accidentally going off in 2019, injuring a 10-year-old-student.

On Wednesday morning, the Mount Horeb School District reported on its Facebook page there was a shooter at its middle school, but the person “did not breach entryway." It added, “We have no reports of individuals being harmed, with the exception of the alleged assailant.”

Mount Horeb is a small village of 7,700, roughly 40 miles southwest of Madison in Dane County.

The Center for Homeland Defense and Security maintains an online public database showing all U.S. instances of K-12 schools when a gun is brandished, fired, or a bullet hits school property. The CHDS K-12 School Shooting Database shows there have been 2,069 shootings, 684 deaths, and 1,937 injuries on K-12 school properties nationwide between January 1970 and June 2022.

The dataset also tracks whether the shots fired were related to gang violence, a preplanned shooting or domestic violence. It also indicates whether any victims were targeted or hostages were taken, among other datapoints.

Just one Wisconsin shooting since 1970 involved a hostage situation, the dataset shows. On Nov. 29, 2010, at Marinette High School, a 15-year-old student left class to use the bathroom and returned to the classroom with a backpack containing two guns. The student fired at the classroom projector, then took the class and teacher hostage for several hours.

Students said their Marinette classmate "appeared sad and depressed" and they attempted to keep him calm, according to the dataset. The shooter died by suicide.

At least two shootings in Wisconsin were preplanned. At Weston High School in Cazenovia on Sept. 29, 2006, a 15-year-old student entered school with a long-barrel shotgun around 8 a.m. The principal and janitor wrestled the gun away, but while the janitor left to call 911, the student pulled out a .22-caliber handgun and fired multiple shots at the principal "before being subdued by other teachers," according to the database.

The Weston High School principal died. The student had been bullied by other students and abused by his father and had a history of mental illness, according to the Homeland Defense and Security database.

At Oshkosh West High School, a school police officer shot a student in the hallway on the morning Dec. 3, 2019. The 16-year-old student stabbed the police officer several times with a barbecue fork, and the police officer later reported being unable to reach a stun gun in time.

There were another six instances when shots were fired on K-12 school grounds in Wisconsin between 1970, when the dataset began, and 2000.

Cleo Krejci covers higher education, vocational training and retraining as a Report For America corps member based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at CKrejci@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @_CleoKrejci. Support her work with a tax-deductible donation atbit.ly/RFADonation.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Shots fired 20 times on Wisconsin K-12 school grounds since 2000