Perry High School shooting: City administrator speaks [RAW]

so how are you doing how are the people here what's what's the feeling right now uh I would say overall feeling is just heartbroken um you know heartbroken for the community uh you see stuff happen on the news and you never think it's going to happen to you as cliche as that might sound but um you know definitely thinking of the entire Perry community and well beyond the community uh you know looking at social media there's people all across this country uh thinking about us and that really means a lot yeah how and when did you hear about the shooting um so one of my co-workers uh his wife is a teacher at the school um so he uh called me and texted me that there was an incident and then I got to drop my kid off at daycare and then try and get down here to see what if anything I was able to do so um or about you know 7:45 yesterday what was your first gut reaction I obviously you know nothing other than there's an active shooter lock down what what's going through your mind you know just disbelief um you know fear of what might be going on with the kids and teachers in the school and um you know of course thinking of our law enforcement of the city and our First Responders as well as all of the law enforcement that responded yesterday it was just it was really incredible it's got to be unique being a small town everybody's interconnected I mean you're a grad from this high school y you know uh the gunman you know the student who did this yeah how do you kind of reconcile what goes through your mind and you know uh how you coping with that yeah you know not just for myself but I think the entire Community um like I said we're just heartbroken um thinking about all the students affected thinking about that sixth grader um and I think uh Mr marber's daughter said it best last night for for the butler family of um they suffered a loss too they didn't see it coming and uh you know just have Grace for everybody um and I think that's what this community is really going to excel at is just coming together as a community showing everybody Grace uh showing everybody compassion um you know it was it's a loss for the entire Community for everybody involved and um still thinking about Mr marberger you know he was my principal um I think my friends put him through plenty of shenanigans back in the day so uh definitely thinking about him and his entire family how do you what's the city doing to kind of help the staff obviously you know the district's going to want to have uh counselors and that sort of thing what yeah any initial plans yep so uh today and tomorrow our city buildings are uh set up to help the school uh have space to have counseling for students and staff and I think any community that needs help that was directly affected too so uh we've got Public Library space at City Hall uh a couple of other buildings that we're making sure set set up uh and available for anybody that might need to talk to somebody we're seeing the Perry strong popping up yeah what is that what does it mean what do you feel when you see that uh you know I one of our taglines is Perry Pride uh and I think that's really showing through today that um you know even in a time of grief G and sadness were coming together as a community I think that was very evident last night at the vigil um just the number of people that were there uh speaking and uh you know I I always and also thinking about you know not only the adults that were affected but the students that showed up last night and just their uh ability to be resilient um in a time like this and um you know it shows the strength of our students uh and the staff that's uh taking care of them in the schools where does the town go from here I mean what it's sort of just talk about cliches The New Normal yeah um yesterday I got a call from a good friend Chris luring he's the city administrator up in parkerburg um where they had a school shooting of their uh High School football coach a few years back and uh I think he said it best of Sven today your town will never be the same so um you know keeping that in mind but trying to have the best attitude that we can about it and you know not uh dwelling on um you know negative emotions but trying to come together as a community what do you want people to know about Perry aside you don't it does you know how do you how do you redefine we're not the town that had the school shooting what what should people know about Harry you know I I think I want to try and make sure people know that this is a town that uh cares about each other um when I was in school uh there was a group of students that started a slogan of everybody love everybody um I thought about that this morning and uh you know that's what I want people to think of when they think of Perry of wow that Community suffered a loss but they were able to come together and come out stronger on the other side I guess lastly I understand it's a very diverse grou it's not a very Iowa Community uh it's it's very diverse and I mean that that plays kind of a part in it yeah uh you know I think that was a beautiful part of last night is just the diversity uh that showed up last night at that vigil uh there's uh you know speaking in English and Spanish for those presenters um and really showed that uh sense of community and unity that we have here is a diverse Small Town Iowa all right well I wish you the very best thank you so much for making yourself available today thank you uh

Channel: FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul

Views: 24,898

Keywords: news, perry high school shooting, perry, iowa, sven peterson, bill keller, school shooting, raw interview

Id: Vyy8R6mWW6I

Length: 6min 3sec (363 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 05 2024