16-Year-Old Kills Three Children and a Teacher at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend Oregon

A 16-year-old Bend resident forced his way into Silver Rail Elementary School on Thursday afternoon by firing a long gun at locked doors, then killed three children and a teacher before a bystander who followed him into the building shot him dead.

Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said the children who died were ages 5, 8 and 11. A 7-year-old child and a 54-year-old teacher were critically injured and taken to St. Charles Medical Center. Officers arrived at 1:02 p.m., minutes after the first 911 call at 12:59 p.m. reporting shots into a car outside the school. By the time police entered, the shooter was already dead.

Krantz told reporters the bystander, described as a community member and parent of a student at the school, saw the teenager enter and pursued him. The two exchanged gunfire. Police have not released the shooter's name or confirmed any connection to the school. Silver Rail serves kindergarten through fifth grade and enrolled about 459 students in the prior school year.

The school went into lockdown immediately. All classes in the Bend-La Pine district were canceled for Friday. Deschutes County began assembling mental health support for students and families. FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau was assisting and would provide resources as needed.

This was the 36th shooting on K-12 grounds in the United States this year, according to a CNN tally. The sequence shows how quickly the incident unfolded: first call about shots into a vehicle, then reports of an intruder inside, lockdown order, and the bystander intervention before officers reached the scene. No motive has been stated. The long gun type and number of rounds fired remain under investigation.

Parents gathered at a reunification point. The bystander's action stopped further casualties inside the building, but the deaths of children as young as five and the injury of another student and a teacher leave the community with immediate operational and longer-term questions about access to the school and response times.

Officials have not named the victims. Hospital officials confirmed the ages of the dead children and the status of the two critically injured. The investigation continues with local police and federal assistance. Families in Bend face the practical tasks of notifying relatives, arranging support, and deciding when the school can reopen under tighter protocols.

The timeline from first shots outside to the shooter's death inside took roughly three minutes. That interval limited the number of additional victims but also left little time for standard lockdown procedures to fully contain the threat once the shooter was through the doors. Future reviews will examine the locked doors' effectiveness and the bystander's role under state laws that allow armed civilians in certain circumstances.