Iowa school shooter was ‘bullied’: friends
Teen killer ‘got tired of the harassment’
• A day after a shooting sent bullets flying inside a small-town Iowa high school, leaving a sixth-grader dead and five others wounded, the community of Perry is sombre. Yellow crime tape still lined the campus that Perry High School shares with the town’s middle school, flowers and stuffed toys had cropped up in mini memorials, and classes across the district were cancelled Friday in favour of counselling.
On Thursday, a 17-yearold student opened fire at the school just after 7:30 a.m., forcing people to hunker down in classrooms and offices shortly before classes were set to begin on the first day back after winter break.
The suspect, identified as Dylan Butler, died of what investigators believe was a self-inflicted gunshot wound, an Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation official said. An administrator, later identified by his alma mater as Perry High School Principal Dan Marburger, was among those wounded.
In a Facebook post later that day, Marburger’s daughter said he was in “surgery all day, and is currently stable.”
Authorities said Butler had a pump-action shotgun and a small-calibre handgun. Mitch Mortvedt, the state investigation division’s assistant director, said during a news conference that authorities also found a “pretty rudimentary” improvised explosive device and rendered it safe.
A law enforcement official briefed on the investigation said federal and state investigators were interviewing Butler’s friends and analyzing his social media profiles. However, authorities have provided no information about a possible motive.
Shortly before Thursday’s shooting, Butler posted a photo on Tiktok inside the bathroom of Perry High School, the official said. The photo was captioned “now we wait” and the song “Stray Bullet” by the German band KMFDM accompanied it. Investigators have also found other photos Butler posted posing with firearms, according to the official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation.
Two friends and their mother said Butler was a quiet person who had been bullied for years.
Sisters Yesenia Roeder and Khamya Hall, both 17, said alongside their mother, Alita, that Butler was bullied relentlessly since elementary school, but it escalated recently when his younger sister started getting picked on, too.
“He was hurting. He got tired. He got tired of the bullying. He got tired of the harassment,” Yesenia Roeder Hall said. “Was it a smart idea to shoot up the school? No. God, no.”
Rachael Kares, an 18-yearold senior, who fled jazz band rehearsal when she heard gunshots Thursday morning, said she believes Marburger would have addressed any bullying that was reported to him.
“Any instances that happened toward Dylan were resolved because my principal is an amazing man who was on top of it all,” Kares said.
Perry Superintendent Clark Wicks and all members of the district’s school board didn’t immediately respond to questions Friday about how the school responded to the bullying Butler’s friends described.
Police arrived within minutes after an active shooter was reported at 7:37 a.m. Thursday, authorities said.
Perry High School senior Ava Augustus was awaiting a counsellor in a school office when she heard three shots. Unable to flee through a small window, she and others barricaded the door and were ready 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.”