Evan Rosen, Jessica Schladebeck, Jager Weatherby
New York Daily News
Officials have identified 17-year-old Perry High School student Dylan Butler as the gunman responsible for a violent attack on the Iowa high school Thursday morning, which ended with five wounded and two dead, including the shooter.
Butler reportedly shot six people in the incident, killing one sixth-grade student, before turning the gun on himself.
The five other victims, including a Perry school administrator, are currently being treated at local hospitals, according to Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of Iowa’s Division of Criminal Investigation.
Mortvedt, who spoke during a 4 p.m. news conference outside the school, added that one person remained in critical but not life-threatening condition, while the others were stable. He did not share the identities of the victims, but the wounded administrator was later confirmed to be longtime high school principal Dan Marburger.
The shooter was said to have been armed with a pump-action shotgun and a small-caliber handgun when he carried out the attack. Police also located what they called a “rudimentary” improvised explosive device in the school that was disarmed without injury.
Butler “made a number of social media posts in and around the time of the shooting,” Mortvedt added, saying that all evidence leads authorities to believe he acted alone.
A TikTok photo appeared to show Butler in a public bathroom with a duffel bag, along with the subtitle “now we wait,” and the song “Stray Bullet” by the German band KMFDM overlayed on the post. His social media accounts have since been taken down.
The investigation is ongoing, and as of Thursday evening, investigators have not identified a motive for Butler’s attack.
Two girls who knew Butler said that the 17-year-old was a quiet person who had been bullied since elementary school. But when his younger sister started getting bullied, too, it was apparently the “last straw.”
“He was hurting. He got tired. He got tired of the bullying. He got tired of the harassment,” said Yesenia Roeder Hall, 17. “Was it a smart idea to shoot up the school? No. God, no.”
The gunfire erupted on what should have been the first day of students’ spring semester, before school had officially started for the day, police said. However, there was a breakfast program taking place, where students of different grades were together inside a common area.
The first reports of a possible active shooter started flooding in around 7:40 a.m. local time, according to authorities.
Ava Augustus, a Perry High School senior, said she was in a counselor’s office when she heard three gunshots and decided to barricade the door with others.
“And then we hear ‘He’s down. You can go out,’” Augustus recalled through tears. ”And I run and you can just see glass everywhere, blood on the floor. I get to my car and they’re taking a girl out of the auditorium who had been shot in her leg.”
Law enforcement officers spanning multiple agencies — including the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office and the Perry Police Department — raced to the high school in the suburbs some 25 miles northwest of Des Moines. When they arrived on the scene, within minutes of the initial call, officers discovered multiple people suffering gunshot wounds.
Video shared on social media showed police officers and law enforcement cruisers circling the building, blocking off the streets surrounding the school.
By 8:25 a.m., the nearby middle school was cleared, while a second team declared the high school safe just minutes later, according to local NBC affiliate WHO-TV. The elementary school was also evacuated as a result of the violence, and students were dismissed for the day shortly after 8:30 a.m.
Dallas County Sheriff Adam Infante later emphasized there was “no further danger to the public.”
“We’re just now working backwards trying to figure out everything that happened,” he said of the ongoing investigation.
“Our hearts are broken by this senseless tragedy. Our prayers are with the students, teachers and families of the Perry community,” said Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.
A candlelight prayer vigil brought together hundreds of community members on Thursday evening at a park where students had earlier been reunited with their families.
Despite freezing temperatures, the gathered crowd and listened to messages of hope delivered by pastors representing various faiths, with uplifting words shared in both English and Spanish.
With News Wire Services
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