A 17-year-old American high school student opened fire Thursday morning in his Iowa school, killing a schoolboy and injuring five other people, mostly students, local authorities announced. Identified as Dylan Butler, the shooter was found “with a self-inflicted wound,” Mitch Mortvedt, a local official, said at a press conference. This expression is usually used to indicate that a shooter committed suicide, but authorities have not clearly said whether he was dead, as several American media outlets have claimed. Asked by AFP, the sheriff’s services refused to confirm this.
The events took place in the small town of Perry, about sixty kilometers from Des Moines, the state capital. The high school student had two weapons, a shotgun and a handgun, Mr. Mortvedt said. “There are six victims, one of whom died. This person was a schoolboy,” he added. Four of the injured people are students, the fifth is part of the administration, he said. “Butler also published a number of posts on social media around the time of the shooting,” he continued, without specifying their content.
A nightmare”
Sheriff Adam Infante had earlier indicated that the presence of a shooter was reported around 7:37 a.m. local time. Police arrived “within seven minutes” and “located multiple gunshot victims,” he said. “Fortunately, there were very few high school students and teachers in the establishment” due to the early hour, and classes had not yet started, he added. According to local media, it was the first day of recovery after the winter holidays. Images from the establishment showed a heavy police presence.
A high school student, Ava Augustus, recounted what she saw of the tragedy to local channel WHO 13. “We heard ‘he’s on the ground, you can get out’ and I ran and we saw glass everywhere, blood on the ground,” she said. Jody Kurth, whose stepson was grazed by a bullet, told local station KCCI it was “an absolute nightmare.”
The gun issue
These shootings occurred as the state of Iowa prepares to kick off the Republican Party primary season on January 15 when its voters vote in small neighborhood assemblies, the “caucus”. With more guns than people, the United States has the highest gun death rate of any developed country. Shootings are a recurring scourge that successive governments have so far been powerless to stem, because many Americans remain very attached to their weapons.
Schools and high schools are regularly the scene of shootings in the country. In May 2022, a man killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb elementary school in the town of Uvalde, Texas. And in February 2018, a former high school student in Parkland, Florida, shot dead 14 students and three adults in a matter of minutes, armed with a semi-automatic rifle. He was sentenced to life in prison.
US President Joe Biden called on July 4, the American national holiday, to end the “epidemic of gun violence”, after a “wave” of killings and a year to the day after a shooting occurred during a parade.