Active shooter reported at Perry High School in Iowa

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A 17-year-old student armed with two guns and a makeshift explosive device opened fire inside his rural Iowa high school on the first day back from winter break Thursday, killing a sixth-grader and injuring five others before turning the gun on themself, officials said.

Gunman Dylan Butler posted an ominous message on TikTok saying “now we wait” shortly before his bloody 7:47 a.m. rampage at Perry High School, according to state police and published reports.

The attack horrified the students who were on the campus early before classes started — including Rachael Kares, an 18-year-old senior, who said she was practicing with the school’s jazz group when she heard four gunshots ring out.

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

Officials did not release the names of the victims, though one was identified as principal Dan Marburger. One of the injured parties was in critical condition but was expected to survive, and the other four were in stable condition, according to Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of Iowa Department of Public Safety.

All evidence suggested Butler acted alone, Mortvedt said, adding that he made cryptic social media posts before the rampage at the small-town campus that combined middle and high schools, 40 miles northwest of Des Moines.

A motive for the mass shooting was not revealed by police, but community members said Butler had been bullied relentlessly throughout his life.

Butler was armed with a pump-action shotgun and a small-caliber handgun, according to authorities. After he took his own life, first responders deactivated a “makeshift explosive device” during a “swift and immediate” police response that involved 150 officers from multiple agencies, Mortvedt said.

The rampage at the school came before the opening bell, when “very few students and faculty” were in the building, “which contributed to a good outcome in that sense,” Dallas County Sheriff Adam Infante said at a press conference in the aftermath of the shooting.

The Easton Valley Community School District confirmed that Marburger, who had served as principal for the Perry Community School District since 1995, was the administrator injured in the tragedy.

“Our hearts break to hear of this kind of violence that affects so many people, including many in our community. Our thoughts will also be with the entire Perry community as they grieve through this traumatic event. We will follow up with any updates once we receive more information,” the district said in a statement.

Parent Kevin Shelley told KCCI Des Moines that his 15-year-old son Zander Shelley was in a school hallway when he was grazed by a bullet in the back and arm before taking shelter in a classroom.

Zander also watched Marburger get struck by the gunfire.

“My son was inside, said he heard gunshots and immediately started running,” Shelley said. “They got into a classroom with a teacher that kept them hidden and safe.”

The injured sophomore was reunited with his dad outside the school and was recovering at home, as throngs of parents met with students outside the school for “tearful” reunions after the campus was cleared and evacuated, the local station reported.

Shelley, a garbage truck driver, told his boss he had to run to the school as soon as he got word of the shooting.

“It was the most scared I’ve been in my entire life,” he said.

Ava Augustus, a Perry High senior, said she was in her counselor’s office when she heard three shots. The people in the office could not escape through a small window, so they barricaded the door and gathered objects to throw at the shooter 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.”

Some high school kids initially thought the rampage was a prank, according to WHO 13.

“I heard a couple of bangs, they weren’t loud. We saw loads of people run out. We thought it was a prank or something. We didn’t think it was real at first,” a student named Carlos said.

“That’s when a bunch of cops started coming and we knew it was serious and we were told to leave. One of our teachers started screaming at us — that’s when we knew it was serious — he was telling us to ‘leave, leave, leave.’”

As Kares and her fellow students ran past the football field, she said, she heard additional shots as well as people yelling, “Get out! Get out!”

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

Some students took shelter at an assisted living community near the school, Holly Killmer, a teacher for Perry Middle School, told the Des Moines Register.

“I work in the school … and two of my three children were supposed to be in the high school at that time,” said Killmer.

“How do you wrap your mind around sending them back into that environment? How do they do that? It’s just so traumatic.”

“We were told to go home, but we were also told we could get our cars out which is not true — we can’t get our cars out,” Killmer said. “Watching parents come up … as we’re (evacuating) over here — within minutes, parents pulling in here and screaming and crying and hugging their kids. It was more than I can handle.”

The district canceled classes for the remainder of the day and Friday amid the ongoing investigation.

Before the shooting, Butler had posted a TikTok of himself grimacing in what appeared to be a school bathroom stall as a blue duffle bag sat on the floor, captioned “now we wait,” according to the local paper.

The song “Stray Bullet” by KMFDM played in the background of the post, which features lyrics like “I’m your nightmare coming true, I am your worst enemy,” and “Stray bullet, from the barrel of love.”

The outlet noted that the song had been posted to the website of Eric Harris, one of the shooters who opened fire at Columbine High School outside Denver in 1999.

Butler’s social media accounts had been shut down in the hours following the massacre.

One family who knew Butler described him as a quiet person who had endured bullying since elementary school

Sisters Yesenia Roeder and Khamya Hall, both 17, said alongside their mother, Alita, that Butler finally snapped after his younger sister started getting picked on, too.

School officials never intervened, which they said was “the last straw” for Butler.

“He was hurting. He got tired. He got tired of the bullying. He got tired of the harassment,” Yesenia said.

“Was it a smart idea to shoot up the school? No. God, no.”

The incident came as presidential candidates and the national media descended on the Hawkeye State ahead of the Iowa caucuses, 11 days away.

Officials said the White House had been informed of the shooting and was monitoring the response. The FBI was assisting local authorities with the investigation.

“All of our condolences to the victims and their families; they need your thoughts and prayers as well as time and space to process and to grieve,” Chief Eric Vaughn of the Perry Police Department said Thursday afternoon.

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