A mass shooting occurred on January 4, 2024, at Perry High School in Perry, Iowa, United States. Seventeen-year-old student Dylan Butler shot five students and three staff members before killing himself. One of the wounded students, a sixth-grader, died the same day and one of the shot staff members, principal Dan Marburger, died ten days later from injuries sustained during the shooting.[1] It was the first school shooting of 2024.[2]
Perry High School and Perry Middle School are part of the Perry Community School District in Perry, Iowa. The two schools share a building and are connected by a hallway adjacent to the cafeteria, where the shooting occurred. The cafeteria hosts a breakfast program for all middle and high school students before school.[3]
Perpetrator
Dylan Jesse Butler (October 11, 2006[4] – January 4, 2024), a Perry resident and student of Perry High School,[5] was identified by police as the shooter.[6] Butler's friends and mother described him as being a quiet person who had been bullied for years and speculated that the "last straw" may have been school officials' failure to intervene when his younger sister began to be bullied as well.[7] The investigation's report—released October 17[8]—concluded that Butler acted alone without anyone knowingly providing support in "actions driven by a desire to commit suicide with the hostile intent of taking others with him".[9]
Authorities have not provided a motive for the shooting.[7][10] Butler made social media posts before the shooting, including a TikTok post showing him in a Perry High School bathroom stall with a duffel bag, captioned with the text "now we wait".[6][7] The post was accompanied by the KMFDM song "Stray Bullet", which had been used on the personal website of Eric Harris, one of the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre.[6]
Shooting
Butler entered Perry High School at 7:12am through the main entrance, weapons concealed, before staying in a restroom for twenty minutes, where he concealed himself from surveillance, posted to social media, and started a livestream.[8] As students of all grades (including those from the middle school) concluded band practice and had breakfast[11] at 7:35am, Butler returned to the commons area and fired upon more than fifty students and staff present, critically injuring 6th-grader Ahmir Jolliff and wounding Principal Dan Marburger along with four other students. He then moved through the school, down hallways, into secured classrooms, and near an exit. There, Marburger confronted him—allowing students to escape the area[11]—before Butler shot him again. In total, he fired twenty-three rounds from his pump-action shotgun (later identified as a Remington 870 of unknown origin). His revolver—unsecured in his home and brought to school—was never used.[8]
At 7:35am, Dallas County communications first received alerts from SEARS—a system for schools that allows users to contact emergency services with a button[12]—and a student's 911 call. The first officer entered at 7:38am, and Butler shot himself within the next minute, being pronounced dead by police at 7:40.[8] The first wave of first responders then arrived at the scene at 7:44.[13] In a later search of the school, police found a homemade bomb and disarmed it safely.[14]
More than 150 officers arrived at the school to find its occupants either evacuating or under shelter-in-place.[11] The middle school attached to the high school was cleared by 8:25a.m., and the high school was cleared by 8:27a.m. A nearby elementary school was dismissed by 8:32a.m.[10] By 9:27a.m., the FBI and the ATF were on the scene.[13] While some students ran to homes close to the campus after evacuating, others went to reunification centers such as the National Guard Armory, the Perry Lutheran Homes,[15] and the McCreary Community building.[16]
Later in the day, eleven-year-old Ahmir Jolliff was pronounced dead having been shot three times.[17] Ten days later, Principal Marburger died.[1] Others injured included two staff members[18] and four students, one of whom was in critical condition.[13]
Reactions
A memorial was planned and held at a local park the same day of the shooting.[11] A local Methodist church offered their building as a sanctuary for those impacted.[3] At least one GoFundMe was created to help those affected.[15]
Local and state education, police, and the Iowa Firearms Coalition released statements supporting affected members of the community and sympathizing with the victims of and families affected by the shooting. A statement from the White House press secretary called the shooting a "heartbreaking and heart-wrenching" event, calling on Congress to act against gun violence. Several political figures, including Vivek Ramaswamy, who was holding a campaign event in Perry on the same day, Governor Kim Reynolds, Nikki Haley, Joni Ernst, Zach Nunn, Chuck Grassley, Rita Hart, and Brenna Bird released statements or social media posts offering condolences to the victims of the attack.[19]Donald Trump also offered condolences, adding "It's just horrible, so surprising to see it here. But we have to get over it, we have to move forward".[20] In a press briefing, the White House used the shooting to call for gun control.[21]
In April 2025, Perry High School band held a concert in memory of Jolliff and Marburger, which featured the premiere of a piece entitled A Mere Moment, composed by Michele Fernandez, as well as a collaboration with Central College's Symphonic Wind Ensemble, which was Marburger's Alma mater.[citation needed]
Perry County, Tennessee
On September 22, 2025, a retired police officer was arrested for sharing a Facebookmeme image quoting Donald Trump's response to the 2024 Perry High School shooting that "We have to get over it" in response to a planned memorial for the shooting death of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk.[23] The charges alleged that the man intended to commit a mass shooting against Perry County High School in Tennessee, though Perry CountySheriff Nick Weems later admitted that he knew the reference to Perry High School in the meme referred to the mass shooting event in Iowa.[24]Bail was set at $2 million, and prosecutors postponed a hearing to reduce bail from October 9 until December 4, 2025.[25]
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