Kid-slay anguish
Iowa school vic, 11
A sixth-grade student slain during a mass shooting at a rural Iowa high school has been identified as 11-year-old Ahmir Jolliff, officials said Friday.
Jolliff was shot three times during the “horrific” Thursday bloodbath at Perry HS on the first day back from winter break, the Iowa Department of Public Safety said in a release.
Jolliff, a student at Perry MS, was one of eight shot at the combined high school and middle school 40 miles northwest of Des Moines.
Three staff members and four other pupils “received wounds of injuries of varying degree,” DPS said.
The suspected shooter — 17-year-old Dylan Butler, a student at the high school — died from a self-inflicted gunshot, authorities said.
Jolliff, who was known as “Smiley” at home, had been so excited about returning to school after the holidays that he left three minutes before his mom and sister, a ninth-grader, according to his mother, Erica Jolliff.
The tuba-playing youngster, who loved soccer and sang in the choir, kept a box of toys for his fellow neighborhood kids on the family’s front porch, she added.
“He was so well-loved and he loved everyone. He’s such an outgoing person.”
Perry HS principal Dan Marburger, who valiantly tried to protect his students, remains in critical condition after being shot, according to the agency.
The educator had tried to calm down and “distract” the shooter so that other students could escape, his daughter has claimed.
The 17-year-old was armed with a pump-action shotgun, a small-caliber handgun and a makeshift explosive device, police said.