Perry shooter sought fame and tried to livestream attack, investigation shows | News, sports, jobs

FILE – A rock is painted to remember Perry High School shooting victim Ahmir Jolliff on Jan. 6, 2024, in Perry, Iowa. (Lily Smith/The Des Moines Register via AP, File)

DES MOINES – The teenage gunman who carried out a deadly attack at a small-town Iowa high school in January sought notoriety for the shooting, tried to livestream his actions and had been planning for weeks, according to investigators.

The city of Perry, about 30 miles northwest of Des Moines, was rocked when 17-year-old Perry High School student Dylan Butler opened fire on students and staff members before classes began on Jan. 4, the first day of school opened winter break. Butler took his own life with a single shot minutes after shooting others.

The shooting occurred in the school’s common area, where about 50 students and staff had gathered for breakfast before classes. According to a new report summarizing the investigation, Butler arrived at the school at 7:12 a.m. with a shotgun, a revolver, a knife and a homemade explosive device and immediately went into a restroom near the common area. While he was in the bathroom, Butler posted on social media and began livestreaming, the report said.

The livestream was active on Instagram for a “very, very short time” before parent company Meta shut it down, Stephan Bayens, commissioner of the Iowa Department of Public Safety, said Friday during a news conference. Butler had a limited following on the platform, so it’s unlikely that many people saw the livestream that Meta later provided to investigators, Bayens said.

The evidence collected suggests that Butler had been showing signs of an obsession with violence and school shootings for at least a year and had begun planning the shooting six or more weeks in advance, Bayens added.

Bayens noted that there was no evidence to support the claim that Butler acted on a complaint or because he was being bullied, as some who knew him had suggested.

Based on Butler’s writings, “he wanted to be famous, he wanted to commit suicide, he wanted to take others with him,” Bayens said.

The Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation conducted a comprehensive investigation, Bayens said Friday. Based on that investigation, Dallas County District Attorney Jeannine Ritchie released a report Thursday summarizing her office’s findings and assessment of the crime. They concluded that Butler had acted alone and the investigation found no evidence that anyone had specific knowledge of Butler’s plans or helped him in the shooting.

Butler came out of the bathroom with the shotgun 23 minutes after arriving at school and began shooting. Within the first 24 seconds, Butler fatally shot 11-year-old sixth-grader Ahmir Jolliff and wounded four other students and Perry High School principal Dan Marburger, the report said.

Bayens and Ritchie both highlighted the heroic actions of Marburger and others in responding and detailed how principal and assistant principal Brad Snowgren moved toward the scene as the shooting began.

Snowgren sounded an alarm and notified first responders of an active school shooting 10 seconds after the first shot was fired and 25 seconds before the first 911 call, the report said. The first police officer entered the school less than two minutes after that alarm, much earlier than originally reported as “less than seven minutes.”

According to the report, Marburger had a chance to escape the building but stayed inside and pleaded with Butler to stop shooting. Bayens said Marburger “saved lives that day” by distracting Butler and repeatedly calling his name to give others time to escape.

Investigators have not been able to determine how or where Butler got the shotgun he used back, but Bayens said it was likely resold in a private sale and “probably came from a large gun collection within the extended family … and was likely purchased without the knowledge of the.” “The owner was taken away.”

The handgun Butler brought to school was not used in the shooting and was left in an unsecured location at his parents’ home, investigators determined. Regardless, Ritchie wrote that Butler’s parents were unaware of his plans and that the evidence in the case “does not support state charges against anyone.”

According to the report, school staff frequently interacted with Butler, but there were no reports of Butler’s intentions on the day of the shooting. Butler also was not the subject of any prior law enforcement investigations or threat assessments, according to the report.

But investigators found that Butler had been obsessing over previous school shootings with people in the community and in online chat rooms and that he had suffered for years from behavioral and mental health issues that were known to the people in his life.

“I can say that others were aware of the shooter’s general interest in school shootings. Others were aware of his fascination with violence. Others were aware of his worrying behavior,” he said. “These concerns, along with a number of other warning signs, went unreported or otherwise unrecognized.”

Bayens said some of those interviewed expressed regret that they had not voiced their concerns and urged people to speak out.

“School safety strategies must be holistic,” he said. “We need parents, we need teachers, we need friends. We need these partnerships if we want to prevent this.”