PERRY, Iowa —
A 17-year-old Perry High School junior, wielding a shotgun and handgun, killed a sixth-grader and wounded five other people, four students and the school's principal, before turning a firearm on himself early Thursday morning, law enforcement officials said.
Officials who responded just after 7:30 a.m. also discovered an improvised explosive device, an IED in military parlance, in the high school, but rendered the contraption, which they described as "rudimentary," ineffective.
The shooter posted a video of himself in a school bathroom on social media preluding the rampage, officials confirmed. The video has been widely viewed since the shootings.
Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, identified the shooter, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, as Dylan Butler. The police did not name the slain child. Several community members and media outlets said the high school principal, Dan Marburger, who has been with the district since 1995, was shot.
Four victims were in stable condition and one's status was listed as serious as of mid-afternoon.
"This senseless tragedy has shaken our entire state to the core, and I want this community to know that every Iowan stands with you," Gov. Kim Reynolds said in a mid-afternoon news conference just south of the Perry High School football stadium. "It's impossible to understand why anything like this happens."
Every minute counts in situations like the one that unfolded in Perry today, the governor said in crediting the swiftness of law enforcement.
"Their heroic actions today we can say saved lives," Reynolds said. "Their response today was tremendous."
At 7:37 a.m. Perry Police responded to an active shooter call -- while multiple calls came in to the Dallas County law enforcement switchboard, officials said.
"Perry police officers responded within minutes," Mortvedt said. "They immediately made entry and witnessed students and faculty either sheltering in place or running from the school."
Butler who was armed with a pump-action shotgun and a small-caliber handgun, had made a number of social media posts "in and around" the time of the shooting. Police said he also came to school this morning, the first day back after holiday break, with the explosive device.
"All evidence thus far suggests Butler acted alone," Mortvedt said
150 officers from local, state and federal officials responded.
Law enforcement did not have details on motive.
Butler is white. Perry is one of the more diverse cities in the state, but Mortvedt, responding to a question during the news conference from La Prensa Iowa Spanish Newspaper, said police did not have any evidence to indicate race was a factor — and no community members in interviews with Iowa Mercury raised racial concerns.
"As far as the ethnicity of the victims, I'm not sure, and there is nothing to indicate at this time that it had anything to do with race," Mortvedt said.
About 500 people attended a candlelight vigil just after 5 p.m . at Wiese Park on the east side of Perry, a city of about 8,000. They sang and prayed and listened to testimonials to victims and descriptions of the fear and horrors of the day.
The shootings drew national media attention, coverage amplified by the fact that Iowa Caucuses, the fist presidential nominating contest, are Jan. 15 and media members, several of whom were in Iowa following the campaigns of Republican presidential candidates, could make a half-hour drive from Des Moines west to Perry on Highway 141.
Reynolds fielded a question from a national political reporter who asked the GOP governor how presidential candidates should respond to the shooting.
"I'll let them decide how they're going to talk about it," Reynolds said.
Meanwhile, families and students were talking about the shootings’ piercing of a small-town serenity.
The Hernandez family was grateful for their own miscommunication on timing of getting 16-year-old Samuel Hernandez to school. His mother, Laura, an insurance agent in Perry, thought her older son, Juan, home on break from Simpson College where he's a freshman defensive back on the football team, would be taking Samuel to school. But Juan's workout ran longer than he thought, so Laura got Samuel to school herself, a little later than expected, meaning he was not in the building, but just entering the door when faculty told him to leave, that there had been shootings.
"I was running a little late so by the time I got to school the cops were already there, and they told us to take him home and be safe," Laura said.
She said the shootings are an "eye-opener" — and reinforce what she always tells her children — that life is too short.
"I've been her in Perry since 1992," Laura Hernandez said. "I didn't think it was going to happen here. You hear the news, Des Moines. You hear the news, Texas."
Hernandez said she is thinking about the timing of the morning, that if she'd been operating as usual, her son could have been in harm's way.
"He could have been there, not shot, I can't even think of that word," Hernandez said.
Two Perry High School freshmen, Angie Orellana, 14, and Lily Navarrate, 14, described the chaos in the high school.
They heard gun shots, the morning cafeteria turn silent, and then rushed out of the high school.
Lucinda Soriano, 18, wasn't at the school when the shooting happened. The senior did not have to arrive until later. She learned from a little sister that it wasn't safe to go to school.
"I was getting kind of excited to go back to school because it is my last semester and then I graduate," Soriano said.
But before she could get there, her school, Perry High School, became the location of the first American school shooting of 2024.
Soriano said she's frightened another shooting could happen in the school, and is nervous about returning to class.
Classmate Samuel Hernandez said the shooter, Dylan Butler, was known as a "quiet kid."
"He wouldn't really talk to people," Samuel Hernandez said. "I would always do my own thing. I was busy with school and sports and never got to know him."
(Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa journalist and a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. The roster of writers includes journalists, poets and authors from across the state.)
Excellent coverage, Doug.
The aftermath discussion of a motive in this tragedy has taken an even uglier turn, according to this post by an LGBTQ+ advocacy publication. https://www.advocate.com/news/iowa-school-shooter-gender-identity
Those who necessarily (and quite hatefully, maliciously and irresponsibly) associate LGBTQ+ individuals with perpetrators of mass shooting apparently don't remember what happened at Orlando, Fla. in June 2016, when 49 people were killed and 53 wounded in a mass shooting at a gay nightclub. The shooter, killed by police, claimed allegiance with ISIS and said in a 911 message he was retaliating for the death of one of his leaders in Iraq. The Orlando mass shooting was the worst act of mass anti-LGBTQ violence in more than 40 years and the worst act of domestic terrorism since 9-11. But I suppose 2016 might as well be a century ago in this era of social-media saturation, low attention spans and people who don't want to be confused with the facts.
MSNBC and other news organizations also reported another "influencer," apparently a Q'anon buff, said the Perry tragedy was designed to distract media attention away from the release of Jeffrey Epstein documents and his list of clients. Don't think that worked. Maybe whoever posted that should come to Perry to see for themselves if they have any guts.
👍the “community and parent perspective” is an important part of this tragic event, and the story. Well done Doug.