Timeline of the Perry High school shooting (1/4/24) released by police
10 months after a planned attack in rural Iowa, police released details about how the shooting ended before the first police officer found the 17-year-old school shooter.
Ten months after the school shooting at Perry High in rural Iowa on January 4, police have finally released a timeline and some details about the incident. The 17-year-old student perpetrator entered the school with a shotgun, pistol, knife, and IED inside a duffle bag (important note: both planned attacks at schools in the spring of 2024 involved IEDs).
He spent 22 minutes inside a school bathroom where he posted photos of himself with the gun, posted on a Discord ‘school shooting massacres’ channel, posted the same song played by the Columbine shooters, and started a livestream on social media.
He fired 23 shots with a 12-gauge shotgun during a 100-second time period. Six of the victims were shot in the first 24 seconds including both victims who were killed.
Four minutes after firing the first shot, the teen killed himself before police found him. The first officer entered the school 4 minutes and 21 seconds after the attack started. Police determined the Remington 870 shotgun "likely came from a large gun collection within the extended family and a revolver found on the teen was legally purchased by his father in 2020 and left unsecured in the family home."
Police concluded that the shooter acted alone and “the evidence confirms this was not a spontaneous act but rather the product of significant preparation and planning. The evidence suggests the shooting victims appear to have been chosen based on immediate availability and were not specifically targeted. The evidence suggests his actions that morning were indiscriminate and driven by a desire to commit suicide with the hostile intent of taking others with him. The investigation determined he likely displayed warning signs that were unrecognized or unreported”.
What Happened
On the first day back from winter break, there was a school shooting before classes started at Perry Middle & High School on January 4, 2024. The combined campus is in Perry, Iowa, a small town of 7,800 about 35 miles from Des Moines. Thirteen minutes before 1st period classes, a 17-year-old with a shotgun and pistol opened fire inside the school. He killed a 6th grade classmate, wounded 4 other students, and fatally shot the principal (died 2 weeks later) before taking his own life in the hallway.
This shooting highlights four critical planning factors that are frequently overlooked by police and school administrators:
Planned attacks can happen before classes start. This is a time period when the school building is open but teachers, staff, and security either haven’t arrived yet, or are still getting ready for the day.
Most shootings at schools don’t take place inside a classroom. The shooting at Perry High was in the cafeteria and hallways.
Eight of the ten school shootings with the highest number of casualties happened in small communities (population less than 50,000).
School shootings are often planned as both shootings and bombings.
After every school shooting, people say “we never thought something like this could happen in our community”. The reality is that these attacks can happen anywhere including at a school with 600 students in rural Iowa.
Read more about how Perry High followed the same pattern as other planned attacks.
Official timeline
7:12:27 a.m. – Butler entered Perry High School through the school’s main entrance.
7:12:55 a.m. – Butler entered a student restroom in a hallway adjacent to the commons area.
7:34:50 a.m. – Butler started a social media livestream broadcast inside the restroom.
7:35:02 a.m. – Butler fired the first of 23 shots from the 870 shotgun, striking Ahmir Jolliff.
7:35:12 a.m. – The SEARS activation from inside the school is received by the Dallas County Communications Center.
7:35:37 a.m. – The Dallas County Communication Center received the first 911 call from a student inside Perry High School.
7:36:42 a.m. – Butler fired his final shot, striking Dan Marburger.
7:36:43 a.m. – Law enforcement officers were notified of the SEARS activation and reports of an active shooter inside Perry High School.
7:37:42 a.m. – The first law enforcement officer arrived at Perry High School.
7:38:01 a.m. – First office entered the school and actively attempted to locate Butler.
7:39:23 a.m. – Teen fired a final shot, taking his own life.
7:40:39 a.m. – Two police officers found the 14-year-old deceased from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
No Charges Against Parents
Unlike the school shooting last month at Apalachee High in rural Georgia where the teen’s father has been arrested, the prosecutors in Iowa have decided not to charge anyone else including the teen’s parents. Prosecutors concluded that:
The examination of facts has led this office to conclude that Butler acted alone in planning and carrying out the events of January 4, 2024. As the lead prosecutor, it is my duty to hold individuals accountable for their actions when the evidence leads me there. However, in this case the evidence does not support charges at the state level against anyone.
Active parental involvement in a child’s life, including open communication, monitoring social interactions, and actively engaging with their school, is crucial in preventing mental health issues and mitigating the risk of school violence. If you see something, say something. We must work together, not only in response in these tragedies but also in our collective effort to prevent them from happening again.
What’s Next
Now that police have confirmed the teen was acting alone and was not involved with anyone else in his geographic community, this highlights the danger of how social media and Discord chatrooms can radicalize vulnerable teens.
School shootings are rooted in ideologies—extreme overvalued beliefs—that promote hate and violence. Children need to be taught about radicalization to avoid it. Peer education and student involvement in interventions is essential to identify a student who is becoming radicalized and fixating on extreme overvalued beliefs. Policymakers and federal officials need to identify and eliminate the online communities that allow children and teens to engage with violent, fringe sub-cultures. (see: Ep 16. Can psychologists treat school shootings the same way as eating disorders?)
Every parent and school officials should know:
Discord chat groups can be private and are unlikely to be internally monitored by the company. If your school district has a threat assessment team or contracts a social media monitoring service, it’s unlikely that they will be able to see the content in these private groups.
Direct messages on Discord are encrypted. Even with a warrant, school officials and law enforcement are unlikely to be able to access these messages.
Students are more likely than adults to see threatening posts made by their peers. If a student reports seeing threating comments or information about a planned school shooting on Discord (or any other online platform), this threat should be taken seriously.
Threats reported to a law enforcement agency can fall through the cracks. If you see threatening messages, report them to multiple agencies and continue to follow-up until you have confirmation that the threat has been investigated.
Strong connections between the history of school shootings and far-right domestic terrorism. If a student is engaging with or sharing white nationalist, anti-government, or far-right propaganda, this should be a red flag for gun violence.
Join Discord and routinely search for your school’s name, school mascot, or nicknames associated with your school or community.
The good news is that most students with Discord accounts are probably using it for gaming or talking to their friends. Developing a school community where these students are enabled and feel invested in school safety can create a climate where students will come forward if they see a problem in a private group or chat.
Trusting and engaging with students to recognize the threats that kids are seeing can prevent the next school shooting.
David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.