Bend-La Pine Schools Superintendent Cook says community ‘stunned and heartbroken’
A 16-year-old forced his way into Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday afternoon by shooting at the building’s locked doors, then fatally shot three children and a teacher before being killed by a community member who pursued him into the school, according to local police.
Police identified the children killed as ages 5, 8 and 11. A seven-year-old and a 54-year-old teacher were taken to a hospital in a critical condition, police said. It was unclear if the assailant had any links to the school.
Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz identified the bystander who killed the 16-year-old as “a community member who had seen the suspect enter the school and pursued him into the school and engaged him.” The unnamed attacker forced entry by firing at the school’s locked doors, police said. The shooter was a local 16-year-old boy, and police declined to release further details about the teen pending the ongoing investigation.
Bend Police Department spokeswoman Sheila Miller told reporters that local law enforcement responded to reports of an active shooter at the school at 12:59 local time. The first 911 call indicated that an unknown suspect had shot into a car, she said. Photographs released from the scene show a red truck with bullet holes. Minutes later, the local county dispatch received a flood of 911 calls and law enforcement were sent to the scene. The suspected shooter was shot dead at around 1:02 p.m., Miller said.
Bend-La Pine Schools Superintendent Steven Cook said in a statement: “We are stunned and heartbroken by this senseless tragedy. No words can adequately express the grief our community is experiencing.”