What to Know About the Shooting at Perry High School in Iowa

A sixth grade student was killed and five other people injured Thursday morning at Perry High School in Iowa, after a suspect police identified as 17-year-old Dylan Butler opened fire. 

Butler, a student at the school, has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Mitch Mortvedt, Assistant Director at Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, said at a press conference Thursday afternoon. Four of the surviving victims are students and one is a school administrator, Mortvedt said. All five are being treated at local hospitals— four of the victims are in stable condition, while one is in critical condition with non-life threatening injuries. 

Butler was allegedly armed with a pump action shotgun and a small caliber handgun, Mortvedt said, and law enforcement also found an “improvised explosive device” during their search of the school. He said Butler had made “a number of social media posts in and around the time of the shooting.” Butler appears to have acted alone.

First reports about a potential active shooter at the school came in around 7:37 a.m. CST, Dallas County Sheriff Adam Infante said at a previous press conference Thursday morning, and an officer first arrived at the scene seven minutes after shooting began. 

“It's impossible to understand why anything like this happens,” Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said during the Thursday afternoon press conference. “I want you to know that we'll work tirelessly to get the answers so that we can prevent it from happening again.”

Perry elementary and middle schools will be closed tomorrow, and counseling services will be available for students, according to the schools’ Facebook pages. According to the school’s academic calendar, it was the first day of the spring semester. Infante said the school day hadn’t started when the shooting began.