( NYPost )
A 17-year-old student armed with two firearms 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 messsage 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 — incluidng Rachael Kares, an 18-year-old senior, who said she was practicing with the school’s jazz 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 said one of the wounded was an administrator, who was identified in local reports as Principal Dan Marburger. One of the injured parties was in critical condition but was expected to survive, and the other five 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 school combined middle school and high school campus, 40 miles northwest of Des Moines.
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.
Parent Kevin Shelley told the paper 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.
Two teachers told the paper that Marburger was the administrator who was shot, something that Shelley said Zander also saw.
“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 in addition to people yelling, “Get out! Get out!”
“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 posed a TikTok of himself grimacing in what appeared to be the 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 of Denver in 1999.
Butler’s social media accounts had been shut down in the hours following the massacre.
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 Perry Police Department said Thursday afternoon.
“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 Perry Police Department said Thursday afternoon.
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