A 17-year-old boy opened fire at a high school in a small town in Iowa this Thursday, January 4, on the first day of school after winter break, killing a sixth-grade student and injuring five others, while Students barricaded themselves in offices and fled in panic.
The suspect, a student at the Perry school, died from what investigators believe was a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and at least one of the victims is a school administrator, an agent told The Associated Press. ). The official was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Perry has about 8,000 residents and is about 40 miles northwest of Des Moines, on the edge of the state capital metropolitan area. The high school and middle school are connected, located on the east end of the town.
Perry High School senior Ava Augustus said she was in a counselor's office, waiting for hers to arrive, when she heard three gunshots. She and other people blocked the door, as the window was too small for an escape.
“And then we heard 'It's downstairs. You can come out,'” Augustus said through tears. “I saw glass everywhere, blood on the floor. I get to my car and they are taking a girl out of the auditorium who had been shot in the leg.”
Three gunshot victims were taken by ambulance to Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines, according to a spokesperson for the health system. Some other patients were transferred to a second hospital in Des Moines, a spokesperson for MercyOne Des Moines Medical Center confirmed, declining to comment on the number of patients or their conditions.
Vigils were planned Thursday night at a park and at a local church. A post on the high school's Facebook page announced it would be closed Friday, with counseling services planned at the public library on Friday and Saturday.
In Washington, US Attorney General Merrick Garland was briefed on the shooting. FBI agents from the Omaha-Des Moines office are assisting in the investigation led by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.
The shooting occurred in the context of the Iowa presidential caucuses, the first in the country. Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was scheduled to hold a campaign event in Perry at 9 a.m. local time, about 1.5 miles from the high school, but canceled it to have a prayer and talk with area residents.
Mass shootings in the U.S. have long sparked calls for stricter gun laws. The new shooting reopened the debate. However, greater control over gun ownership has been a position criticized by many Republicans, especially in rural, Republican-leaning states like Iowa.
Until July 2021, Iowa did not require a permit to purchase a gun or carry a firearm in public, although it did require a background check for a person purchasing a gun without a permit.
Ramaswamy said the shooting is a sign of a “psychological disease” in the country. In Des Moines, Republican rival and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said gun violence “is more of a local and state issue” in an interview with the Des Moines Register and NBC News.
Perry High School is part of the Perry Community School District, which has 1,785 students. The town is more diverse than Iowa as a whole, with census figures showing that 31% of residents are Hispanic, compared to less than 7% for the state. Those figures also show that nearly 19% of the town's residents were born outside the United States.
Details of the shooting
An active shooter was reported at 7:37 a.m. Thursday and officers arrived seven minutes later, Dallas County Sheriff Adam Infante said. Emergency vehicles surrounded the middle and high school.
Zander Shelley, 15, was in a hallway when he heard gunshots and ran toward a classroom, according to his father, Kevin Shelley. Zander was shot twice and hid in the classroom before sending a text message to his father at 7:36 a.m.
Kevin Shelley, who drives a garbage truck, told his boss he had to leave. “He's never been so scared in my entire life,” he said.
Rachael Kares, an 18-year-old senior, was finishing jazz band practice when she and her bandmates heard what she described as four gunshots, spaced apart.
“We all jumped,” Kares said. “My music teacher looked at us and yelled, 'Run!' So we ran.”
Kares and many other students from the school ran past the soccer field, as they heard people shouting, “Get out! Get out!” Additionally, he said he heard additional gunshots as he ran, but he did not know how many. She was more concerned about getting home to her 3-year-old son.
“At that point I didn't care about anything other than going out because I had to get home to my son,” she said.
Erica Jolliff said her daughter, a ninth-grader, reported being rushed out of school at 7:45 a.m. Distraught, Jolliff was still looking for her son Amir, a sixth-grader, an hour later.
“I just want to know that he's safe and okay,” Jolliff said. “They won't tell me anything.”
(AP)
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