Several people were wounded on Thursday morning in a shooting at an Iowa high school on the first day of classes after the holiday break, officials said.
The shooting at Perry High School took place just after 7.30am local time and resulted in “multiple victims,” Dallas County Sheriff Adam Infante said at a news briefing. The extent and exact number of injuries were still being determined, he said.
After the briefing, both CNN and NBC News reported that the shooter was dead, citing police officials. NBC reported that the suspect died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
ABC News previously reported that at least one person was killed, citing unnamed law enforcement officials. During the briefing, Infante did not confirm or deny that report.
The sheriff did say that the shooter had been identified but offered no further information.
Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) responded to the scene, and the US attorney general has been briefed, a US Justice Department spokesperson said.
The shooting took place on what was to be the first day of the spring term, according to the school district’s calendar. Perry, a town of about 7,900, is about 40 miles (64km) northwest of Des Moines, the state’s capital city.
Few pupils and staff were in the building at the time, since classes had not yet begun, Infante said, which may have curtailed the number of victims.
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Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur who founded a biotechnology company, had been expected to hold a rally in Perry but changed the event to an in-person prayer after reports of the shooting, a campaign spokesperson said.
Iowa will hold the first statewide contest for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination in 11 days.
“Pray for the community in Perry, Iowa this morning,” Ramaswamy said on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.