Students recall terror of Iowa school shooting that killed sixth grader and injured five others

(CNN) — Students at Iowa’s Perry High School were eating breakfast and finishing up band practice in the cafeteria Thursday morning when a classmate entered the building with two guns and opened fire, killing a sixth-grader. Injuring others and sending children and teachers fleeing. for safety; Before the first class of the new semester begins.

Investigators are still looking for a motive for the 17-year-old attacker. He is dead, a law enforcement official told CNN. Student Dylan Butler was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the school near Des Moines, said Mitch Mortwade, deputy director of the Iowa Department of Public Safety’s criminal investigations division.

Four students were injured, Mortved said. The principal, Dan Marburger, was also injured, according to other school district officials.

At first, some people mistook the gunshots for disturbing sounds: a burst balloon, a dropped bag, two witnesses said. But panic and fear quickly spread as teachers and students learned of the threat.

“The whole cafeteria went silent,” high school student Angie Orellana, who was there when the shooting began, told CNN. “Then more firing continued and everything turned into chaos. I saw the principal and all my friends started running and I left.

Student Rachel Kares was sitting during the final minutes of jazz band practice when she heard four gunshots in the hallway, she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday. The air began to smell burning, he said, and then another gunshot rang out.

“Our band teacher looked at us and just said, ‘Run!’ None of us hesitated. “We all got up and ran,” Caress said.

He and his friends ran away trying to get “anywhere away from school,” Cares said. “We just kept going.”

The shooting happened before classes began at the high school, which shares a campus with Perry High School. “It is our understanding that the breakfast program was taking place, so it is possible that there were students in different grades at the school at the time,” Mortved said Thursday.

The first arriving students and staff of more than 150 federal, state and local agents were seen sheltering in place or fleeing the building, Mortwade said.

A man and his children leave the McCreary Community Building after a gathering Thursday following the shooting at Perry High School near Des Moines, Iowa. (Credit: Charlie Nebergal/AP)

Inside, agents found a wounded attacker, as well as an improvised explosive device, which officers secured, he said. He said the juvenile was armed with a pump-action shotgun and a small-caliber handgun.

The attack was one of at least five mass shootings, in which at least four victims were injured, in 2024 — just five days into the year — in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive. A CNN analysis shows that the second shooting on US school property happened a year later this year, with more than 80 such attacks nationwide.

As part of the Iowa investigation, officials are examining social media posts made by the gunman at the time of the attack, officials said, though they did not elaborate on the nature of the posts.

A photo posted by Butler on TikTok shortly before the shooting showed him in a school bathroom with a blue duffel bag and the caption: “Now we wait,” multiple media outlets, including the Associated Press, reported.

The song “Stray Bullet,” by German band KMFDM, accompanied the post, the AP reported, citing a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. The armed students who carried out the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado also quoted the group’s lyrics, CNN reported.

Law enforcement officials are analyzing Butler’s posts on TikTok and Reddit, along with others, and are interviewing friends of the shooter, the AP reported, citing the official.

All Perry District schools will be closed this Friday and counseling will be available as students and community members cope with the tragedy.

“It doesn’t seem real,” Cares said. “It’s like one of those things you see on TV and think it will never spread in my community, but it does. It’s really real.”

A stunned community seeks healing

Community members gather for a candlelight vigil Thursday night. (Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images).

The slain sixth-grader, who has not yet been publicly identified, was “the sweetest kid you want your kids to be friends with,” Perry resident Jessica Conrad told CNN.

A statement from the Easton Valley Community School District in eastern Iowa identified the principal as one of the injured, where Marburger graduated. The district learned of his injury through “our family connections in our area,” he said. Marburger has worked at Perry schools for at least 25 years, according to the Perry Community School District board.

“This senseless tragedy has shaken our entire state,” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said Thursday. “I want you to know that we will work tirelessly to get answers so we can prevent this from happening again.”

Mourners gathered for a vigil at a local park Thursday night, holding candles as speakers shared messages of strength, compassion and unity.

“Even though we’re in a small town, the whole world is embracing us tonight,” said former Perry School student Andrea Niemeyer, who noted she’s received condolences from as far away as Washington state.

“We will get through this because we have each other,” he added.

Some expressed shock and disbelief, including a mother who said her husband tried to drop their children off at school early but was reprimanded.

Mindy Farmer said, “During the morning, as time went on, I could barely breathe, realizing how lucky I was.

Later that day, the question: “Now what?” It started to weigh on him, Farmer said. “I think you might be starting to feel a little helpless.”

Several attendees at the vigil offered prayers, including local pastor Kathy Benton, who prayed for students who are “going to deal with memories and voices and everything.”

“We pray for the healing of his mind,” he said. “We pray for the healing of his feelings.”

–CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz, Amy Simonson, Ivan Perez, Aaron Pellish, Carol Alvarado, Sharif Paget, Dakin Andone and Christina Mexouris contributed to this report.