First tragic armed attack in an American school in 2024. There is one victim, an 11-year-old child, in addition to the killer and five injured. The shooter was a 17-year-old from Perry High School, identified as Dylan Butler, who according to the police acted alone. Investigators are combing social media, where the boy was very active. According to rumors, Butler had posted a photo on TikTok shortly before going into action: the shot published showed him in what appears to be the school bathroom and the photo was accompanied by the message “now we wait”. The police found a “rudimentary” explosive device inside the high school, which was later defused.
The tragedy occurred in a high school in Perry, a small town of 8,000 inhabitants 60 kilometers from Des Moines, the capital of Iowa, the small rural state where the Republican primaries begin on January 15 and where guns circulate quite freely.
The perpetrator of the attack went into action at 7.37 local time, about 20 minutes before lessons began on the first day of school after the Christmas holidays. “Fortunately at that time there were few students and teachers in the building,” said local sheriff Adam Infante, who initially limited himself to talking about several people affected without indicating the number and conditions, waiting to contact the family members. The killer's suicide was revealed by the media. The dynamics of the shooting are still unknown.
Witnesses said they heard some shots and started running towards the football field or barricaded themselves in the classrooms. The police arrived within seven minutes. A helicopter was also mobilized to transport the wounded.
Perry High School is part of a school district of 1,785 students and includes middle and high schools in the same building. Not far away is the primary school, which has also entered lockdown. After the end of the emergency for 'active shooters', a center was set up to bring together parents and pupils.
Schools are regularly the scene of such attacks. In May 2022, a man killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in the city of Uvalde, Texas. And in February 2018, a former high school student in Parkland, Florida, shot and killed 14 students and three adults in a matter of minutes, armed with a semi-automatic rifle. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Joe Biden continues to push Congress for a crackdown on weapons but Republicans oppose it.
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