Six people are dead after a shooting in the small town of Perry, Iowa. The attacker, a 17-year-old male student at the local high school, turned the weapon on himself after the rampage. As local authorities piece together the digital footprint of the gunman, a peculiar transatlantic connection has emerged: a delegation of senior UK police officers was in the United States this week, studying American approaches to domestic violence intervention.
The Iowa shooting marks the third mass casualty event on US soil in as many weeks, and the first of 2025 to claim more than five lives. The suspect, who obtained the firearm illegally according to initial reports, posted a manifesto on a fringe social media platform minutes before the attack. The platform, known for its lax content moderation, has been criticised by lawmakers for its role in amplifying extremist material.
But while the immediate focus is on the tragedy, the presence of British law enforcement adds a layer of policy intrigue. The UK delegation, led by Commander Sarah Fletcher from the Metropolitan Police, was observing how American states implement protective orders and risk assessment algorithms for repeat domestic abusers. The irony is not lost on observers: a nation grappling with its own epidemic of intimate partner violence looking to the US for lessons, even as American schools become battlegrounds.
Commander Fletcher released a brief statement: “We were in dialogue with Iowa law enforcement when the news broke. Our thoughts are with the victims and the community. This tragic event underscores the complex interplay between domestic aggression, access to weapons, and the digital radicalisation of young people. We are reviewing our programme in light of these events.”
The algorithm-driven risk assessment tools the UK team was evaluating use machine learning to predict the likelihood of reoffending among domestic abusers. Critics argue that such systems can encode racial biases, a concern that has dogged similar software in the US justice system. Yet the Metropolitan Police have defended their trip, stating that sharing data on intervention efficacy is crucial to reducing homicides.
Meanwhile, the families of the Iowa victims are left to mourn. The shooter’s mother was reportedly a known domestic violence offender, and the teenager had been flagged by a school counsellor for concerning behaviour. But without a coordinated response between mental health services, school surveillance, and law enforcement, the warning signs were missed.
The question that echoes through both countries is one of digital sovereignty: how do we balance privacy with the need to monitor individuals who may turn violent? In the UK, the Home Office is considering mandatory risk screening for all gun license applicants using predictive analytics. In the US, the constitutional right to bear arms complicates any such move.
As the sun sets on Perry, the streets are quiet except for the hum of drones mapping the crime scene. The data from this tragedy will be fed into countless models, some of which may prevent future deaths. But for the six who lost their lives, the algorithm arrived too late.
