On Aug. 31 at approximately 8:30 am, a twelve-year-old boy brought a .22 caliber-handgun into his classroom at North Scott Junior High School and attempted to shoot his teacher while holding his peers hostage.

The student ordered his classmates to get on the ground and held a loaded shotgun up to the teacher’s head. He then pulled the trigger. Luckily the boy was not aware that the safety was still on and did not know how to turn it off. The female teacher was able to wrestle the gun out of the child’s hands and get him out of the classroom.

The school was on full lockdown and police brought the boy into custody; he is currently being held at Scott County Juvenile Detention Facility. 

Since the boy pulled the trigger with every intention of killing his teacher, he is being charged with attempted murder as well as bringing a firearm onto school grounds. A judge will decide in the next month if the case will be moved to adult court due to the severity of the charges.

Because of the boy’s young age, the first court hearing was made private. As Scott County’s judge, Christine Dalton, said, “I don’t think it’s the public’s interest in having this hearing in open court.”

The teacher, on the other hand, is being praised as a hero. Joe Stutting, superintendent of North Scott, said her quick response, “made all the difference in the world.” After the boy had been taken into custody, the school made sure the students and staff were unharmed. As Stutting said, “Administration, law enforcement, and counselors will be visiting every junior high classroom to ensure our students feel safe.”

This alarming case has been a reminder to many that school shooting situations can indeed happen anywhere at any time. Recently, people internationally have been informing the public on news about school shootings and mass shootings, but the general consensus is that people feel it is unlikely to actually happen to them.

News of this occurrence was even featured in a BBC article. To combat the rising fears of school shootings in the past couple of years, Iowa passed a law making active-shooter drills mandatory.

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