Teen Shooter Kills Three Children and Teacher at Bend Oregon Elementary School Before Bystander Stops Him

A 16-year-old boy from Bend, Oregon, shot his way through the locked doors of Silver Rail Elementary School on Thursday afternoon and killed three children and a teacher before an armed community member followed him inside and shot him dead.

Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said the first 911 call arrived at 12:59 p.m. Pacific time from a person in a vehicle outside the school who reported being shot at multiple times by someone with a long gun. Dozens of further calls followed from inside the building. Officers arrived at 1:02 p.m. Moments later, they learned a community member who had seen the shooter enter had pursued him and engaged him. The suspect was found dead inside.

The children killed were aged 5, 8 and 11. A seventh-year-old student and a 54-year-old teacher were taken to St. Charles Medical Center in Bend with critical injuries. Victim families were notified. The shooter, a Bend resident, was not named. Police said it was not clear whether he had any connection to the school. The weapon was described as a long gun; one law-enforcement official briefed on the case told the Associated Press it was a pump-action shotgun purchased by the shooter’s mother.

Silver Rail Elementary enrolls about 400 students from kindergarten through fifth grade and employs about 40 staff. All schools in Bend and the neighboring city of La Pine were closed on Friday. A reunification site was set up at Journey Church. Fifth-grade teacher Kathy Sheil Smith told a local station she saw the shooter through her classroom window, called the main office, and moved her students into a corner while trying to keep them calm. Some children prayed; others comforted classmates.

The incident is Oregon’s first deadly mass shooting at an elementary school, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. Investigators have not released a motive. The bystander who stopped the attack held a concealed-carry permit and acted before police fully entered the building.

The short timeline, from the first call to the shooter’s death, compressed the window for response. Police directed the school into lockdown at 1:01 p.m. and were on scene one minute later. The sequence leaves open questions about how the shooter obtained the firearm and whether any earlier warning signs existed, both of which remain under investigation.

Local and national officials expressed condolences. The attack adds to the long record of school shootings in the United States and places fresh attention on the role of armed bystanders when law enforcement cannot arrive in the first moments.