Iowa high school shooter ID’d as 17-year-old student Dylan Butler; dead by suicide after killing 1, wounding 5
Officials have identified 17-year-old Perry High School student Dylan Butler as the gunman responsible for an attack on the Iowa school Thursday morning, which left five wounded and two dead, including the gunman.
Butler reportedly shot six people in the incident, killing one sixth-grade student, before turning the gun on himself.
The five other victims, including a Perry school administrator, are currently being treated at local hospitals, according to Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of Iowa’s Division of Criminal Investigation.
Mortvedt, who spoke during the 4 p.m. news conference outside the school, added that one person remains in critical condition, but did not share the identities of the victims.
The shooter was said to have been armed with a pump-action shotgun and a small-caliber handgun when he carried out the attack. Police also located what they called a “rudimentary” improvised explosive device in the school that was disarmed without injury.
Butler “made a number of social media posts in and around the time of the shooting,” Mortvedt added, saying all evidence leads authorities to believe he acted alone.
The investigation is ongoing, and as of Thursday evening, investigators have not identified a motive for Butler’s attack.
The gunfire erupted on what should have been the first day of students’ spring semester, before school had officially started for the day, police said. However, there was a breakfast program taking place, where students of different grades were mixed together inside the school.
The first reports of a possible active shooter started flooding in on Thursday around 7:40 a.m. local time, according to authorities.
Law enforcement officers spanning multiple agencies — including the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office and the Perry Police Department — raced to the high school in the suburbs roughly 25 miles northwest of Des Moines. When they arrived on the scene, within minutes of the initial call, officers discovered multiple people suffering gunshot wounds.
Video shared on social media shows police officers and law enforcement cruisers circling the building, among them Iowa State troopers, who blocked off the streets surrounding the school.
By 8:25 a.m., the nearby middle school was cleared, while a second team declared the high school safe just minutes later, according to local NBC affiliate WHO 13. The elementary school was also evacuated as a result of the violence, and students were dismissed for the day shortly after 8:30 a.m.
Dallas County Sheriff Adam Infante later emphasized there was “no further danger to the public.”
“We’re just now working backwards trying to figure out everything that happened,” he said of the ongoing investigation.
“Our hearts are broken by this senseless tragedy. Our prayers are with the students, teachers and families of the Perry community,” said Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.
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