A 17-year-old student at Perry High School in Iowa fatally shot a sixth grader and wounded four other students and a school administrator Thursday before apparently killing himself, officials said.
Police responded to an active shooter around 7:37 a.m. at the high school in Perry, a city of around 7,800 around 30 miles northwest of Des Moines, police said.
The shooter was armed with a pump-action shotgun and a small-caliber handgun, police said.
The identity of the student who was killed has not been released. Everyone else who was injured is expected to survive, officials said.
Gov. Kim Reynolds called the shooting a “senseless tragedy” that has shaken Perry and the entire state, and she said her prayers were with the community.
Authorities have not released a motive, and an investigation was ongoing.
Responding officers found victims who had been shot and the shooter dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Mitch Mortvedt, the assistant director of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, said at a news conference.
Police also found an "improvised explosive device," which the state fire marshal and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives rendered safe, he said.
The shooter was identified as Dylan Butler. The evidence indicates he acted alone, Mortvedt said.
"Butler also made a number of social media posts in and around the time of the shooting," he said.
The shooting happened before school had started and not many students were on campus, but a breakfast program was taking place, he said.
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Community members seek comfort in one another at vigil
Hundreds of people gathered for a candlelight prayer vigil tonight at a park where, hours earlier, students had been brought to reunite with their families after the shooting at Perry High School.
Bundled up against freezing temperatures, they listened to pastors from many faiths and heard a message of hope in both English and Spanish.
'He got tired of the bullying,' classmates say of shooter
Sisters Yesenia Roeder and Khamya Hall, both 17, said alongside their mother, Alita, that the 17-year-old classmate who police identified as the shooter had been bullied relentlessly since elementary school. That escalated recently, they said, when his younger sister started getting picked on, too. Officials at the school didn’t intervene, they said, and that was “the last straw” for the shooter.
“He was hurting. He got tired. He got tired of the bullying. He got tired of the harassment,” Yesenia Roeder Hall, 17, said. “Was it a smart idea to shoot up the school? No. God, no.”
A mother's agonizing wait after a terrifying text
D’Sheka Maggitt, 35, whose sons, Phillip Gray and Trent Maggitt, attend Perry High School, said the two left home at 7:22 a.m. to catch the school bus, and about 15 minutes later Trent texted her saying that there had been a shooting at the school.
Naturally, she said, she panicked, grabbed her keys and sped to the school.
“Before I could get to the school, I had already seen 10 to 15 police and sheriff’s cars flying in the direction of the school,” she said, adding that this prompted her to put her emergency lights on and drive even faster.
When she arrived, the entrance to the school was blocked off. She said that little information was being provided.
Maggitt could not reach her sons by phone for some time. When she did, she learned that Trent, who is 15, had already entered the school when the shooting started. He told her that he had heard four or five rounds fired and then “everyone started running.”
Phillip, 14, said that when he got off the bus, he heard three shots. He said he turned around and heard his bus driver yelling for the students to get back on. He did. As the driver drove off, he said he saw his friend, a 10th grader, being carried by a teacher outside the school.
“He had blood on the side of his hip and he was limping while the teacher was holding him,” Phillip said.
Iowa governor says shooting ‘has shaken our entire state to the core’
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said the shooting “strikes to the heart of everything that we hold dear.”
“Our hearts are heavy today and our prayers are with the Perry community,” Reynolds said at an afternoon news conference. “This senseless tragedy has shaken our entire state to the core.”
Sixth grade student was killed in shooting
A sixth grader was killed and five other people were injured during this morning's shooting at Perry High School, officials said at an afternoon briefing.
The child who was killed was a student at Perry Middle School, said Mitch Mortvedt, the assistant director of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.
Four other students were injured as well as a school administrator, and they are being treated at area hospitals, he said.
Mortvedt said one of the injured victims was in critical condition with what appeared to be non-life-threatening injuries.
The shooting happened before school had started and not many students were on campus, but there was a breakfast program taking place, he said, adding that there may have been students of different grades in the school at that time.
Authorities say 17-year-old shooter acted alone
Authorities identified the shooter as a 17-year-old student at the high school.
Dylan Butler appeared to have acted alone and was armed with a pump action shotgun and a small-caliber handgun, Mitch Mortvedt, the assistant director of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, said at an afternoon news conference.
Police continue to look into a motive for the shooting, he said. Mortvedt said that officers at the scene found what appeared to be the shooter with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Officers also located an improvised explosive device at the scene, which Mortvedt described as “rudimentary.”
DeSantis says addressing shootings is ‘more of a local and state issue’
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis offered his support for Iowa after the school shooting at Perry High School on Thursday, but said that dealing with such shootings “is more of a local and state issue,” declining to suggest any changes to federal law he’d support that would make them less frequent.
The Republican presidential candidate touted efforts in Florida to keep schools safe in a joint interview with NBC News and The Des Moines Register.
“We obviously, you know, have a responsibility to create safe environments. The federal government is probably not going to be leading that effort,” DeSantis said.
“I think it is more of a local and state issue,” he added. “But we’ve shown how it’s done in Florida. The things that we’ve done have been very, very effective.”
Students should not be ‘looking for escape routes’ in school, Iowa Democratic Party chair says
The chair of the Iowa Democratic Party said in a statement that students “should be able to focus on creating brighter futures for themselves while they are in their classrooms, not looking for escape routes, hiding places, or fearing for their safety.”
“I am so sad and so sorry that the Perry community is living this nightmare that has happened far too often across our country,” Chair Rita Hart said in a statement this afternoon.
“The Perry community deserves better. Iowa deserves better,” she said.
Mom says her daughter ran for her life after the gunman opened fire
Monica M. Gonzalez's daughter was grabbing breakfast at the Perry High School cafeteria this morning when the gunman opened fire. Gonzalez's daughter immediately fled the area. She was sprinting down a hallway when a teacher appeared, opened up a side door and yelled, "Run!"
Gonzalez's daughter kept running until she reached the nearby National Guard Armory, where Perry students had been trained to shelter in the event of a mass shooting. The girl hid behind the building "because she was worried if the shooter got out of the school that he'd be running to their safe spot, too," Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez said she was shaken and "shocked" over the events of the day, though she expressed gratitude to the teacher who opened the door for her daughter. "All I can say is thank u, thank u and thank u for getting her to someplace safe," Gonzalez wrote in a Facebook group for members of the community.
Parent says text from daughter was ‘absolutely horrifying’
Parent Jody Kurth said she received a text message from her daughter about a shooting at the high school.
"It was absolutely horrifying. One of the worst moments of my entire life," she said, getting emotional.
Both of her children are safe.
"But the best phone call I got was saying that they were OK," she said.
Kurth moved to the area seven years ago and said she never imagined something like this happening in their community.
"It's overwhelming," she said. "The pain in your heart, it's overwhelming."