School related violence

[sugar magnolia]

1 confirmed dead, at least 2 confirmed injured. It won't even officially be considered a mass shooting without one more injury or death reported.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/perry-high-s ... 57192.html

[Volkonski]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/li ... rcna132235

UnityPoint Health system said it had two patients, both of whom sustained gunshot wounds. But the health care system did not give further details on their conditions.

UnityPoint Health said it was expecting a joint news release from all the hospitals involved as they’re all in coordination.

Rep. Zach Nunn said he is "beyond angry" after a gunman opened fire at Perry High School.

"My heart, and my commitment to holding those accountable, is with the community of Perry. We have a duty to protect our children, families, and educators," he said in a statement.

Nunn, a Republican who represents Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, added that he will continue to monitor the situation and that the "school is now secure."

"We will not rest until there is full accountability for this heinous act of violence," he said.

I suspect that Rep. Zach Nunn won't show the same enthusiasm about advocating gun control to help reduce school shootings.

[RTH10260]

Carried over from the Shooting thread

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2024/01/04 ... s-unclear/

Article updated to:

Police say multiple people have been shot at a high school in Perry, Iowa; suspect is dead


By ASSOCIATED PRESS | ap@dfmdev.com
PUBLISHED: January 4, 2024 at 9:49 a.m. | UPDATED: January 4, 2024 at 12:04 p.m.

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI (Associated Press)

PERRY, Iowa (AP) — Police in Perry, Iowa, say multiple people were shot at the city’s high school Thursday, early on students’ first day back in classes after their annual winter break.

Two gunshot victims were taken by ambulance to Iowa Methodist Medical Center in the state capital of Des Moines, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southeast of Perry, a community of about 8,000 people. Dallas County Sheriff Adam Infante said the shooting occurred before school was set to start, so there were few students and faculty in Perry High School.

The suspect in the shooting has died of what investigators believe is a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to The AP on condition of anonymity.



https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2024/01/04 ... t-is-dead/

[Volkonski]

Sixth grade student killed in Perry school shooting; five other victims shot

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story ... 105587007/

Police said six people were shot at the high school early Thursday morning, one of whom was a sixth grade student who died.

The suspect, 17-year-old Perry High School student Dylan Butler, died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in the school, Assistant Director of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Mitch Mortvedt said at an afternoon news conference. Police found an improvised explosive device in the school, which the Iowa State Fire Marshal disarmed. The suspect was armed with a pump action shotgun and a small-caliber handgun, he said.

Five students and an administrator also were shot and survived. Police did not identify the victims but the Register has confirmed Principal Dan Marburger as one of the victims who was shot.

As of about 2 p.m. one victim was in critical but not life-threatening condition. The other four victims were in stable condition, Mortvedt said.

[neonzx]

1 confirmed dead, at least 2 confirmed injured. It won't even officially be considered a mass shooting without one more injury or death reported.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/perry-high-s ... 57192.html

6 confirmed now. What has happened to my beloved Iowa?

[MsDaisy 2]

I pick my grand brats up from school two days a week and I’m very relieved to report they have an armed county police officer on site every school day all day long.

[pipistrelle]

I'm old enough to remember when one's biggest fear at school was to get pantsed or similar.

[RVInit]

If he had been armed with an AR-15 style weapon likely we would have more than just the shooter dead.

[Flatpoint High]

If he had been armed with an AR-15 style weapon likely we would have more than just the shooter dead.

apparently there was a homemade bomb found in the school

[neonzx]

If he had been armed with an AR-15 style weapon likely we would have more than just the shooter dead.

We have a 6th grader dead, not just shooter.

[RVInit]

If he had been armed with an AR-15 style weapon likely we would have more than just the shooter dead.

We have a 6th grader dead, not just shooter.

I hadn't read about that. Damn. I'm so sick and tired of these damn people who go on the hunt. This is all so deranged.

[pipistrelle]

If he had been armed with an AR-15 style weapon likely we would have more than just the shooter dead.

We have a 6th grader dead, not just shooter.

I hadn't read about that. Damn. I'm so sick and tired of these damn people who go on the hunt. This is all so deranged.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/sixth-grader- ... =106147241

The sixth grade student killed in a mass shooting at an Iowa high school on Thursday has been identified, as authorities increased the number of victims reported in the "horrific" incident.

Ahmir Jolliff, 11, was shot three times in the shooting at Perry High School, the Iowa Department of Public Safety said in a release on Friday.

The Perry Middle School student was one of eight victims in the shooting, the Iowa Department of Public Safety said Friday, increasing the previously reported number of victims by two.

Seven people -- three staff members and four students -- "received wounds or injuries of varying degree," the agency said.

[neonzx]

Posting this here because I can't seem to locate the original "convoy" thread...\

This is Josh Fulfer(sp?) -- Oreo Express. Speaking on the Iowa school shooting... and descending into his normal anti-trans diatribe.

It's queued to time.

[Volkonski]

Iowa principal who risked his life to protect students during a high school shooting has died

https://apnews.com/article/perry-high-s ... e187913fc7

An Iowa principal who put himself in harm’s way to protect students during a school shooting earlier this month died Sunday, a funeral home confirmed.

Caldwell Parrish Funeral Home & Crematory confirmed the death of Perry High School Principal Dan Marburger after the family announced it on a GoFundMe page.

Marburger was critically injured during the Jan. 4 attack, which began in the school’s cafeteria as students were gathering for breakfast before class. An 11-year-old middle school student was killed in the shooting, and six other people were injured. The 17-year-old student who opened fire also died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot.

The day after the shooting, the state Department of Public Safety said Marburger “acted selflessly and placed himself in harm’s way in an apparent effort to protect his students.”

News of Marburger’s death was first posted on a GoFundMe page for his family. The post, by Marburger’s wife, Elizabeth, said he died at about 8 a.m. Sunday, and said: “Dan lost his battle. He fought hard and gave us 10 days that we will treasure forever.”

[AndyinPA]

According to tfg, they'll get over it.



RIP

[Dave from down under]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-19/ ... /103366854

Texas police failed in their response to a 2022 elementary school shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers, the US Justice Department has concluded, saying that the victims "deserved better".

Key points:

The report faulted responding officers for not immediately confronting the gunman
The report concluded that none of the law enforcement officials took charge at the scene
The shooting was one of the deadliest school shootings in US history
The report faulted law enforcement officers in Uvalde for waiting more than an hour to breach the classroom where the 18-year-old gunman was holed up with students and staff, leaving the children inside to make panicked 911 calls.

[raison de arizona]

DOJ Uvalde press release: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice- ... oting-robb
The DOJ Uvalde report: https://cops.usdoj.gov/uvalde

[Volkonski]

In first known action in criminal justice system, special grand jury to examine Uvalde response, newspaper reports

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/19/us/speci ... index.html

A special grand jury was chosen in Uvalde, Texas, Friday to investigate the response to the 2022 massacre at Robb Elementary School, according to area newspapers.

A grand jury investigation would represent the first publicly known development within the criminal justice system amid all the investigations into the botched police response.

The San Antonio Express-News reports District Attorney Christina Mitchell told them the grand jury would review evidence related to the mass shooting, but declined to comment on any focus of the grand jury investigation. Jurors are expected to spend at least six months investigating the case, according to The Uvalde Leader-News.

CNN has reached out to the local prosecutor and court officials but has not yet received a response.

Reports of the grand jury empanelment comes a day after Attorney General Merrick Garland visited Uvalde and delivered a scathing US Justice Department review of the law enforcement response – but the two events may be unrelated. The Uvalde Leader-News reports a pool of potential grand jurors had previously been summoned to appear today.

[poplove]

Police Arrest Teen Said to Be Linked to Hundreds of Swatting Attacks
A California teenager who allegedly used the handle Torswats to carry out a nationwide swatting campaign is being extradited to Florida to face felony charges, WIRED has learned.
https://www.wired.com/story/torswats-swatting-arrest/

In case of paywall (this was my last free article, YMMV):

► Show Spoiler

For more than a year, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has been hunting the person whom experts say is one of the most prolific swatters in American history. Law enforcement now believes they have finally arrested the person responsible.

A 17-year-old from California is allegedly the swatter known as Torswats, according to sources familiar with the investigation. The teenager is currently in custody and awaiting extradition from California to Seminole County, Florida. The Florida State Attorney’s Office tells WIRED that he faces four felony counts.

Seminole County, located in central Florida, had two high-profile swatting incidents within the last 12 months, including one targeting a mosque and another targeting a courthouse. Todd Brown, a spokesperson for Florida’s Office of the StateAttorney in the 18th Circuit, confirmed the charges against the teen and his extradition. Brown says he will be prosecuted as an adult under Florida law. WIRED is withholding the 17-year-old’s name because he is a minor.

The teenager’s arrest comes in the midst of a nationwide swatting surge. Swatting attacks typically involve someone calling in fake attacks to 911 in an attempt to solicit an overwhelming police response. Since Christmas, swatters have targeted the homes of prominent politicians from both parties, judges handling cases involving former US president Donald Trump, and the director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Prior to these high-profile swats, a relentless campaign from different, potentially foreign, swatting groups targeted hundreds of schools and universities around the US over the past year and a half. Last May, an officer in Danvers, Massachusetts, accidentally fired his service weapon while responding to a school swat. In February, an officer in Saginaw Township, Michigan, rammed his vehicle through the school’s locked door to get inside the building following a swatting call.

According to the Florida State Attorney’s Office, the charges against the California teenager include making false reports concerning the planting of a bomb or the use of firearms, causing a law enforcement response. All charges are described as related to acts of terrorism and showing prejudice based on race, color, ancestry, ethnicity, or religion.

In private Telegram chats witnessed by WIRED over the past year, a person operating the Torswats handle claimed responsibility for hundreds of false reports of bomb threats and active shootings called into schools, politicians’ homes, courthouses, and religious institutions around the US.

Brad “Cafrozed” Dennis, a private investigator who works for high-profile Twitch streamers who've been swatted, has been hunting Torswats for nearly two years and actively helping the FBI’s investigation. “It’s a beautiful day,” Dennis says. “I am very relieved Tor will no longer be able to conduct his reign of terror on our schools and public officials just doing their jobs.”

According to records shared with WIRED, Dennis engaged someone using the Torswats handle on a peer-to-peer chatting service called Tox under the guise of ordering a swat in December 2022. By recording his network traffic, the investigator surreptitiously captured the swatter’s IP address along with a username that at the time was unknown to law enforcement. According to Dennis, in January 2023, he handed the evidence to the FBI special agents in charge of Torswats’ case. In emails shared with WIRED, the FBI told Dennis this information was used in subpoenas sent to YouTube and Discord. Court records related to the case against the California teen have not yet been made public.

Other messages Dennis shared with WIRED suggest that the FBI has known the identity of Torswats, whose swatting activities were first revealed by Motherboard last April, since at least July 2023, when the agency executed a search warrant and seized Torswats’ devices. The FBI’s Seattle field office, which oversaw the investigation into Torswats, declined WIRED’s request to comment.

"HELLO, I AM going to commit a mass shooting in the name of Satan," a voice with a fake Southern accent drawled to a police dispatcher in Seminole County, Florida, on May 12, 2023. The caller spoke slowly and deliberately when he told the dispatcher that he was armed with pipe bombs and an AR-15 rifle, walking into a mosque to kill everyone he saw. The call ends with the sound of gunshots likely sourced from a video game.

That day, the same voice-over-IP phone number called threats into at least two other mosques in Florida, according to police records obtained by WIRED. That week, in a private Telegram chat, an individual operating the Torswats Telegram channel took responsibility for sending police officers scrambling to as many as 20 schools in Washington state and four historically Black colleges and universities in Texas. Audio from 911 calls reviewed by WIRED and interviews with local law enforcement confirm that many if not all of the Washington state calls were made by someone sounding like an individual associated with the Torswats account. Some used a similar script, referencing an AR-15 rifle and pipe bombs.

The individual’s calls to Washington schools in May affected at least 18,116 students and cost taxpayers $271,173 in lost instructional time, estimates Don Beeler, CEO of TDR Technology Solutions, a company that builds school surveillance tools and tracks and analyzes the costs of school threats.

In private Telegram chats seen by WIRED, an individual behind the Torswats account described their method for carrying out school swattings. After proxying their network traffic through a commercial VPN, the individual would look up the school in every county they targeted using the Public School Review website to find each address. They then would Google the phone number for the nearest police department and use Google Voice to place calls. While most of this appeared to be done on an Android device, they would occasionally use a digital sound board on their PC to introduce gunshot sounds that appeared to be recorded from the video game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

“State and local law enforcement often feel like a swatter is doing something sophisticated, and that’s just often not the case,” Keven Hendricks, a cybercrime expert and swatting investigator, tells WIRED. In November, Torswats claimed to have swatted Hendricks and his family. Hendricks declined to comment about the swatting.

During a hoax call allegedly placed by Torswats and obtained by WIRED that targeted La Plata High School in Charles County, Maryland, last year, the school resource officer informed the caller that he was under an active investigation. “I am never going to be caught,” the caller laughed. “I am invincible.”

IN FLORIDA, WHERE the California teenager is facing state charges, swatting is a felony. Late last year, two 14-year-old boys, allegedly part of a national swatting group called LulzSEC, were accused of calling in a mass shooting at Baker School in Okaloosa County in November. The charges for one of the teens included making an electronic threat of a mass shooting, making a false report of firearms being used in a violent manner, use of a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony, and interference with school functions. In a press conference at the time, Okaloosa County sheriff Eric Aden said the investigation into LulzSEC—which shares the name of an early-aughts hacktivist group—is ongoing.

Last May, the FBI initiated an effort to track swatting nationwide. The National Common Operation Picture – Virtual Command Center, or NCOP-VCC, is a collaborative effort between local law enforcement and the FBI to track swatting activity in real time. According to the FBI, there have been over 550 swatting incidents reported to the FBI’s NCOP-VCC since its launch. Because reporting is voluntary, the true number of swattings across the US is likely much higher.

US senator Rick Scott of Florida introduced a bill earlier this month to expand federal charges related to hoaxes to include swatting. The proposed legislation could potentially result in a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison for individuals convicted of the activity.

Scott says he was swatted at his home in December. According to the incident report, obtained by The Washington Post, the caller claimed that he had shot his wife with an AR-15 and would blow up the house with a pipe bomb.

In a statement announcing the legislation, Scott said, “We must send a message to the cowards behind these calls—this isn’t a joke, it’s a crime.”

It is unclear whether a single person operated under the Torswats name. On January 20, two days after Dennis, the private investigator, said that Torswats had been arrested, a person using the Torswats’ Telegram handle who had knowledge of previous conversations with WIRED reached out.

“I am pretty sure I’ll never be arrested,” the individual wrote in a direct message on Telegram. “Seems ridiculous that a few bucks a month can allow someone to do crazy shit and never go to jail.”

[raison de arizona]

Thanks, I was out of articles. That was an interesting read.

[RTH10260]

DOJ Uvalde press release: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice- ... oting-robb
The DOJ Uvalde report: https://cops.usdoj.gov/uvalde

adding this

[raison de arizona]

[AndyinPA]

So disturbing.

[Slim Cognito]

I feel like I’m going to throw up.

[Dave from down under]

I’m only surprised that Smith & Wesson hasn’t used the deterrent from confrontation value of their “AR-15s” in their sales advertising….

All it took to deter dozens of guys with guns from doing anything for more than an hour was just the thought that he had an AR-15….

On May 17, 2022, a day after his 18th birthday, he legally purchased a Smith & Wesson semi automatic rifle from a local gun store. He then purchased another rifle three days later. Investigators later found that his gun had a "hellfire" trigger device, which decreases the time required for the trigger to reset, increasing the possible rate of fire.