Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Graig Graziosi and Martha McHardy

Iowa shooting: ‘Joyful’ 11-year-old victim mourned as bullying of Perry school gunman revealed

AP

Community mourns deadly Iowa school shooting

The Iowa school shooter who killed one sixth grader and injured five was bullied “relentlessly,” according to his former classmates.

Dylan Butler, 17, was named as the gunman who attacked Perry High School in Iowa on Thursday as students returned from their Christmas break.

His former classmates, sisters Yesenia Roeder and Khamya Hall, both 17, said that Butler had been bullied relentlessly since elementary school.

They added that the bullying had escalated recently, when his younger sister started getting picked on, too. Officials at the school didn’t intervene, they said, and that was “the last straw” for the shooter.

“He was hurting. He got tired. He got tired of the bullying. He got tired of the harassment,” Yesenia Roeder Hall said.

Police said the suspect’s motive was being investigated and authorities were looking into “a number of social media posts” he made around the time of the shooting, Des Moines Register reported.

Moments before the shooting, Butler, who was found dead at the scene, posted a video on TikTok captioned “now we wait” and the song “Stray Bullet” by the German band KMFDM accompanied it.

Ahmir Jolliff, the 11-year-old victim of the shooting, is remembered by family and friends as a joyful boy known as “Smiley” at home.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.