A sixth-grade student died while five others were wounded after a 17-year-old opened fire at Perry High School in Iowa, US on the first day after the holiday break. The student shot at six people, including five students and one school administrator, reported BBC citing police.
The student who died was in sixth grade, and was for 11 or 12 years old, the police said.
They said a "pretty rudimentary" improvised explosive device was found by investigators at the school and rendered safe. The reports of the shooting came in at 07:37 local time (13:37 GMT) and the first officer reached the scene within minutes, police said, BBC reported.
The suspect was identified as 17-year-old Dylan Butler, a student at Perry High School, officials said at a news briefing on Thursday afternoon. Butler was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, the police further said, quoted The Guardian.
Mitch Mortvedt, an assistant director with the state department of criminal investigation, told reporters that four of the wounded victims are students, and the fifth is a school administrator, and declined to release any names.
He said that one victim was in critical condition but did not appear to be facing life-threatening injuries, while the other four were in stable condition.
Meanwhile, students have said the shooter has been bullied relentlessly since elementary school. According to the Associated Press, sisters Yesenia Roeder and Khamya Hall, both 17, said the bullying escalated recently when his younger sister started getting picked on, too.
They said school officials at the school didn’t intervene 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 was quoted as saying by The Guardian. "Was it a smart idea to shoot up the school? No. God, no," she added.