(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The FBI received a tip about the chatroom that 17-year-old Dylan Butler used months before he reportedly killed a sixth grader, injured four others and fatally shot himself at a school last Thursday in Iowa, according to a report from NBC News.
NBC reported Sunday that Butler was a member of the Discord chat group called School Massacres Discussion,” which was dedicated to discussing school shootings. Butler reportedly posted on Discord under the username “tooktoomuch,” which was also the name he used on TikTok.
On Discord, Butler, who reportedly self-identified as “genderfluid,” told other users that he was “gearing up” moments before Thursday’s attack, and that he was at the school and ready “for what’s to come.”
“I’m f—— nervous, I’m the bathroom gearing up,” he reportedly wrote, adding minutes later: “There’s a n—– in the bathroom, I need him to leave so I can assemble my guns.”
According to NBC, another Discord user had notified the FBI about the chatroom months ago.
“The Discord user said they had flagged the chatroom to the FBI in November, after which an FBI agent reached out over email and asked for more information,” NBC reported Monday.
“The user emailed the FBI agent screenshots of the server but did not hear back. The user said their report to the FBI did not include mention of the user ‘took2much.’ The chatroom was closed before the shooting.”
The FBI reportedly declined to comment, while Discord admitted that Butler used its platform.
Last Thursday’s shooting marks at least the 23rd time that the FBI has failed to stop mass shooters before they go on their sprees, despite receiving early warning signs.
The shootings was also at least the second one to be discussed on Discord before it happened. In May 2022, Buffalo mass shooter Payton Gendron had been chatting on Discord with a “retired federal agent” moments before he killed 10 people at a supermarket.
According to The Buffalo News, the retired federal agent may have been one of at least six individuals who regularly communicated with Gendron in an online chat room where racist hatred was discussed.
Along with mass shootings, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard’s intelligence division allegedly leaked highly sensitive Pentagon documents on a Discord server last year.
The Biden administration responded to that leak with plans to drastically increase government monitoring of chatrooms.
Citing an anonymous administration official and a congressional official who was briefed on the matter, NBC News reported last April that the Biden White House is “looking at expanding the universe of online sites that intelligence agencies and law enforcement authorities track.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
