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Iowa school shooting: 6th grade student killed, 5 others wounded

By FOX TV Digital Team
Updated  January 4, 2024 4:20pm EST
Crime and Public Safety
Fox TV Stations

PERRY, Iowa - A sixth-grade student was killed and five other people were injured when a 17-year-old student opened fire at Perry High School in Perry, Iowa. 

Investigators said the shooting happened around 7:40 a.m. Thursday at the building that houses both the middle school and high school in the small town of Perry. When officers arrived, they found multiple people shot and the gunman – 17-year-old Dylan Butler – dead from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

Perry, Iowa update: 5 people hurt, 1 dead

Police say a sixth grader was killed along with five other people who were wounded after being shot. Police identified 17-year-old Dylan Butler as the suspect in the shooting. Officials say they found an explosive device on scene.

Police said five other students and one school administrator were shot. A sixth grade student was killed.

Authorities declined to comment on a TikTok video Butler reportedly posted that appeared to show him in the bathroom of the school after the shooting.  

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Emergency crews respond to the Perry High School shooting (ThePerryNews.com via Storyful)

It's the students' first day back at school following winter break. 

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A shooting has been reported at Perry High School in Perry, Iowa. (Via FOX)

Erica Jolliff said that her daughter, a ninth grader, reported getting rushed from the school grounds at 7:45 am. Distraught, Jolliff was still looking for her son Amir, a sixth grader, one hour later.

"I just want to know that he’s safe and OK," Jolliff said. "They won’t tell me nothing."

Zander Shelley, 15, was in a hallway waiting for the school day to start when he heard gunshots and dashed into a classroom, according to his father, Kevin Shelley. Zander was grazed twice and hid in the classroom before texting his father at 7:36 a.m.

Kevin Shelley, who drives a garbage truck, told his boss he had to run. "It was the most scared I’ve been in my entire life," he said.

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Emergency crews respond to the Perry High School shooting (ThePerryNews.com via Storyful)

Rachael Kares, an 18-year-old senior, was wrapping up jazz band practice at 8:37 a.m. — she had just looked at her watch — when she and her bandmates heard what she described as four gunshots, spaced apart.

"We all just jumped," Kares said. "My band teacher looked at us and yelled, ‘Run!’ So we ran."

Kares and many others from the school ran out past the football field, as she heard people yelling, "Get out! Get out!" She said she heard additional shots as she ran, but didn’t know how many. She was more concerned about getting home to her 3-year-old son.

"At that moment I didn’t care about anything except getting out because I had to get home with my son," she said.

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Map of Perry, Iowa

Perry High School is part of the Perry Community School District and serves about 1,785 students, according to its website. The high school is located about 35 miles northwest of Des Moines. With about 8,000 people, the town of Perry is more diverse than Iowa as a whole. Census figures show 31% of the residents are Hispanic, compared to less than 7% for the state. Those figures also show nearly 19% of the town's residents were born outside the U.S.

Perry School Board President Linda Andorf provided the following statement to LiveNow from FOX: "We need to put a stop to all of this stupid behavior because our children are being subject to things they should not be subjected to. We need to be able to learn how to solve problems without violence." 

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was scheduled to host a campaign rally at a restaurant in Perry, Iowa, on Thursday. He canceled the event and held a prayer and open talk instead. The Iowa caucuses, the first major hurdle for US presidential campaigns, are less than two weeks away.