Transgender, LGBTQ+ Activist Kills One and Injures Five in Iowa

On Thursday, one sixth-grader student died, while five others were wounded in a mass shooting in Perry, Iowa. 

According to the police report, the shooting began before the school started, which is why there were few students and faculty at Perry High School. 

Students and other school authorities took cover in their offices and classrooms as the gunman began firing. 

The shooter was identified as Dylan Butler, a 17-year-old senior high school who identified himself as “genderfluid” on TikTok and was known for advocating LGBT+ rights. 

Hours before the shooting incident, the gunman posted a TikTok video inside the school bathroom with the caption “Now We Wait” and with Stray Bullet as background music.

Amongst Dylan’s victims were the school principal, and four other students. The school refused to disclose names. 

Butler reportedly died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after he opened fire on the campus. 

During the investigation, authorities recovered an improvised explosive device. Butler used a pump-action shotgun and a handgun as his murder weapon. He even took a selfie with these firearms before the incident. His motive is still under investigation. 

Before the crime, Butler had uploaded several disturbing posts on TikTok, including a clip where he acts out on a shooting exchange where he shot someone dead. There was also a video where he reenacted a scene from the movie The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

However, Tiktok already scrubbed Butler’s accounts.

Groups have already raised concerns as data on transgender shooters continues to rise:

• Transgender Audrey Hale murdered six people, including three children at Covenant School in Nashville in 2023. Hale used three guns during the shooting spree.

• Last November, suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich, who was formerly named Nicholas Franklin Brink before he changed his name in 2016, killed five individuals and wounded 25 others in a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs. He identifies himself as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns. During the investigation, authorities found shooting targets and assault plans inside Aldrich’s home.

• In 2019, one student was killed while eight were wounded, as two gunmen, one of them identified as transgender, opened fire at STEM School Highlands Ranch in Denver. Alex Mckinney who was born female, but requested to be marked male was one of the suspects. 

• Four persons were shot and died as the suspect opened fire in a warehouse in Aberdeen, Maryland last 2018. The murderer, Snochia Moseley, came out as transgender during the same period. According to a friend, Moseley wanted to undergo gender-reassignment surgery but struggled with the transition.