17-year-old kills 6th-grader, injures 5 other people in Iowa school shooting
PERRY, Iowa — A 17-year-old opened fire at a small-town Iowa school on the first day of class after the winter break, killing a sixth-grader and wounding five people as students barricaded in offices, ducked into classrooms or fled in panic.
The shooter, a student at the school in Perry, died of what investigators believe is a self-inflicted gunshot wound, an Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation official said. Authorities said one of the wounded was an administrator, who was later identified as Principal Dan Marburger by an eastern Iowa school district where he graduated from high school.
Authorities identified the shooter as Dylan Butler, 17, and provided no information about a possible motive.
Perry has about 8,000 residents and is about 40 miles northwest of Des Moines, on the edge of the state capital’s metropolitan area. It is home to a large pork-processing plant and low-slung, single-story homes. The high school and middle school are connected, sitting on the east edge of town.
The first half of 2023 saw the deadliest six months of mass killings — all but one of them shootings — recorded in the U.S. since at least 2006.
Authorities said the shooter had a pump-action shotgun and a small-caliber handgun. Mitch Mortvedt, the state investigation division’s assistant director, said during a news conference that authorities also found a “pretty rudimentary” homemade bomb and rendered it safe.
The shooter’s motive is being investigated, and authorities are looking into “a number of social media posts” he made around the time of the shooting, Mortvedt added. All of the shootings occurred inside the high school, but other students from other grades may have been there for a breakfast program, he said.
Perry High senior Ava Augustus said she was in a counselor’s office, waiting for the counselor to arrive, when she heard three shots. She and other people barricaded the door, preparing to throw things if necessary.
“And then we hear, ‘He’s down. You can go out,’” Augustus said 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.”
Three gunshot victims were taken by ambulance to Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines, a spokesperson said. Some other patients were transported to a second hospital in Des Moines, a spokesperson for MercyOne Des Moines Medical Center confirmed, declining to comment on the number of patients or their statuses.
Mortvedt said that one person was in critical condition, but that the injuries did not appear to be life-threatening. The other victims were listed as stable, he said.
Vigils were planned Thursday evening at a park and a church. A post on the high school’s Facebook page said it would be closed Friday, with counseling services planned at the public library Friday and Saturday.
Gov. Kim Reynolds ordered all flags in Iowa lowered to half-staff Thursday and to remain so until sunset on Sunday in support of the community and the school’s students, families and teachers.
“This senseless tragedy has shaken our entire state to its core,” Reynolds said during the news conference.
In Washington, Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland was briefed on the shooting. FBI agents from the Omaha-Des Moines office are assisting with the investigation led by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.
The shooting occurred with the backdrop of the Iowa political caucuses and not far from where Republican presidential candidates were campaigning. Vivek Ramaswamy had a campaign event scheduled in Perry at 9 a.m. about 1½ miles from the school but canceled it to have a prayer and discussion with residents, a spokesperson said.
Mass shootings across the U.S. have long brought calls for stricter gun laws from gun safety advocates, and Thursday’s did within hours. But that idea has been a nonstarter for many Republicans, particularly in rural, GOP-leaning states like Iowa.
Tennessee lawmakers are convening a special session this week that highlights the divergent response states are taking to a spate of mass shootings.
Iowa does not require a permit to purchase a handgun or carry a firearm in public, though it mandates a background check for a person buying a handgun without a permit.
Ramaswamy said the shooting is a sign of a “psychological sickness” in the country. In Des Moines, GOP rival and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that gun violence “is more of a local and state issue” in an interview with the Des Moines Register and NBC News.
An active shooter was reported at 7:37 a.m., and officers arrived seven minutes later, Dallas County Sheriff Adam Infante said.
Zander Shelley, 15, was in a hallway waiting for the school day to start when he heard gunshots and dashed into a classroom, said his father, Kevin. Zander was grazed twice and texted his father at 7:36 a.m.
Kevin Shelley, who drives a garbage truck, told his boss he had to run. “It was the most scared I’ve been in my entire life,” he said.
Rachael Kares, an 18-year-old senior, was wrapping up jazz band practice when she and her band mates heard what she described as four gunshots, spaced apart.
Dozens of other states are taking sides in the court fight over the legitimacy of California’s effort to ban high-capacity ammunition magazines.
“We all just jumped,” Kares said. “My band teacher looked at us and yelled, ‘Run!’ So we ran.”
Kares and many others from the school ran past the football field as she heard people yelling, “Get out! Get out!” She said she heard additional shots as she ran, but didn’t know how many. She was more concerned about getting home to her 3-year-old son.
“At that moment I didn’t care about anything except getting out.”
Associated Press writer Scott McFetridge and photojournalist Andrew Harnik in Perry; writers Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Mo.; Josh Funk in Omaha; Trisha Ahmed in Minneapolis; Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington; Mike Balsamo in New York; John Hanna in Topeka, Kan.; and researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.
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