The parents of the 17-year-old shooter at his Iowa high school have stated that they “had no inkling he intended the horrible violence he was about to inflict.”
Dylan Butler, 17, opened fire inside Perry High School in Iowa on January 4 as students returned from the holidays.
One sixth-grader, Ahmir Jolliff, was killed, and seven others were injured, including Perry High School principal Dan Marburger, who is thought to have put himself in danger to protect pupils, as well as two other staff members and four students.
Butler, a former student, was discovered dead on the site. According to police, the adolescent died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
While the teenager’s motivation for the attack is still being investigated, his parents have spoken out, calling the attack “senseless.”
“As the minutes and hours have passed since the horrors our son Dylan inflicted on the victims, the Perry School, and the community, we have been trying to make sense out of the senseless,” the couple stated in a statement. “We are simply devastated and our grief for the deceased, his family, the wounded and their families is immeasurable.”
They also stated that they are working with police to “answer the question of why our son committed this senseless crime.”
Investigators have stated that they are studying reams of electronic and physical evidence and questioning dozens of witnesses in order to better understand what happened and why.
Authorities are also looking into Butler’s TikTok and Reddit posts in the days leading up to the shooting.
Butler recorded a final scary video on his now-defunct TikTok account moments before the shooting. Butler appeared in a school toilet stall with a blue duffle bag at his feet and the caption “Now we wait” in the video.
It was accompanied by the song “Stray Bullet” by the German band KMFDM, which was also featured on Eric Harris’ personal website, one of the gunmen in the 1999 Columbine High School tragedy.
According to the Associated Press, investigators discovered further images Butler uploaded posing with weaponry.
Butler was described by officials as a shy individual who had been bullied for years by his former classmates.
Butler had been bullied relentlessly since elementary school, according to sisters Yesenia Roeder and Khamya Hall, both 17.
They said that the bullying had recently worsened when his younger sister began to be targeted as well. Officials at the school failed to intervene, which they claimed was “the last straw” for the gunman.
“He was in pain. He became exhausted. He had had enough of the bullying. “He was tired of being harassed,” Yesenia Roeder Hall explained.
“Was it a wise decision to shoot up the school?” No. “Oh my God, no,” she added.
Butler was regarded as “the kindest person ever” by Khamya.
“He was there for us when we needed him, and we tried to be there when he needed us, which clearly we weren’t there for him enough,” she said with a tear in her eye.
Following the shooting, hundreds of students and other demonstrators marched on the state Capitol in Des Moines, some 40 miles away from Perry, to call for stricter gun control legislation in the state.
As of July 2021, no permit is required to purchase a handgun or carry a firearm in public in Iowa, while a background check is required for anybody purchasing a handgun without a permit.
In the aftermath of the shooting, the White House encouraged Congress to approve gun control measures that would require universal background checks, ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, mandate safe firearm storage, and create a national red flag law.
“Our students and teachers deserve to know that their schools are safe places where they can concentrate on learning rather than duck and cover drills.” More needs to be done to keep our schools and communities secure, according to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.