6:57 p.m. ET, January 4, 2024
Perry High School shooting is the second on school grounds across US in 2024, according to CNN analysis
From CNN's Alex Leeds Matthews and Gillian Roberts
Police respond to a shooting at Perry High School in Perry, Iowa, on Thursday.
Andrew Harnik/AP
The mass shooting at Perry High School in Iowa on Thursday marks the second school shooting in 2024, according to a CNN analysis. At least one person was killed, and five others were wounded, according to authorities.
The first school shooting of the year took place on January 3 in Midlothian, Virginia. One person was injured. No other shootings on school grounds took place earlier in a calendar year since CNN began tracking such shootings in 2008.
One other incident occurred on or before January 4 — a shooting at an Illinois high school where two people were injured on January 4, 2022, according to the CNN analysis.
There were 82 US school shootings in 2023, a record since at least 2008 when CNN began tracking school shootings. Of those last year, 52 were reported on K-12 campuses and 30 at universities and colleges.
How CNN reports these numbers: CNN reports mass shootings based on data from the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization that tracks gun violence in the United States. CNN and the GVA define a mass shooting as a shooting that injured or killed four or more people, not including the shooter.
CNN defines school shootings as shootings that involve at least one person being shot, excluding the shooter. The shooting must also occur on school property, which includes, but is not limited to buildings, fields, lots, stadiums and buses.