Dylan Butler, Perry, Iowa school shooter went on mass shooting spree after years of unrelenting bullying, as efforts to address the ongoing rebuke with school officials went nowhere, with relatives saying, ‘it was the last straw.’
‘It was the last straw…’ A family member of Dylan Butler, the alleged school shooter at Perry, Iowa claimed the 17 year old senior had endured relentless bullying since elementary school.
Sisters Yesenia Roeder and Khamya Hall, both 17, as well as their mother Alita told the Associated Press that Butler lost his cool after his younger sister began to get bullied too. They said that the 17 year old’s parents had brought the matter up with school officials, who they claimed failed to help.
‘He was hurting. He got tired. He got tired of the bullying. He got tired of the harassment,’ Yesenia said. ‘Was it a smart idea to shoot up the school? No. God, no.’ Adding, ‘it was the last straw for him.’ Khamya called Butler ‘the kindest person ever.’
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F—king nervous: Iowa school shooter active on Discord moments before attack
Tragic school shooting in Iowa: 17-year-old Dylan Butler kills a sixth-grader and injures five. Prior to the attack, he posted a chilling TikTok video captioned ‘Now we wait’ with ‘Stray Bullet’ as background music. This incident marks one of the three mass shootings in the US… pic.twitter.com/uyc6ZQZ9mz
— The Express Tribune (@etribune) January 5, 2024
‘Now we wait,’
‘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.
Armed with a pump action shotgun and a handgun, Butler turned up to a Perry, Iowa high school on the first day of classes in the new year. It was there that the 17 year old senior unleashed his terror, killing a sixth grader and wounding five others (including his school principal) as people hunkered down in classrooms, barricaded offices and fled the barrage of bullets.
A ‘rudimentary’ explosive device too was found in the school. Butler reportedly had plans to murder many others, but the shooting took place before the school day had started, and therefore there were not many students and staff in the building.
Butler, before the shooting, shared a TikTok of himself in what seemed like the school bathroom stall. ‘Now we wait,’ it was captioned. In the background, the song Stray Bullet by KMFDM played. The song has lyrics like ‘I’m your nightmare coming true, I am your worst enemy,’ and ‘Stray bullet, from the barrel of love.’ The song was also used on thepersonal website of Eric Harris, one of the shooters involved in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
Perry high school suspect shooting boy’s Tiktok account Dylan Butler
It all starts with jokes and signs of it
Weirdos have something in common always— Kelz Tbg (@KelzTbg) January 5, 2024
‘I’ve been battling a lot of suicidal thoughts and depression lately,’
There were more videos and back and forth banter on various sub-reddits, including one post which showed Butler emulating The Cook from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as well as notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. He was seen repeating lines and mannerisms from the shows.
A regular commenter to the subreddit /r/askteenboys, /r/trans, and /r/femboys, Dylan use the above platforms to comment about his declining mental health, a bad breakup, and even includes some statements that further allude to a latent homosexuality. At one point, the 17 year old even admits to being ‘suicidal.’ (see image below).
‘I’ve been battling a lot of suicidal thoughts and depression lately,’ said Butler in one post asking about songs people are listening to. In another thread, he claims he would ‘F–k himself’ given the opportunity, and was a user on the homosexual /r/femboys subreddit who commented on n*de photos.
Social media has since shared a posting Butler’s cousin had in which they claimed Butler live-streamed the shooting along with own suicide. Authorities almost immediately scrubbed all of Dylan’s TikTok, Instagram and Twitter accounts – accounts which had the teen live-streamed his demise for the world to see, would have appeared on those platforms.
