Three children and a teacher were killed on Thursday in a shooting at an elementary school in central Oregon, officials said. Another child and teacher were critically injured, the authorities said, and the shooter was shot dead by an armed bystander.
The police in Bend, Ore., said the shooter was a 16-year-old boy who had entered Silver Rail Elementary School by shooting at locked doors with a long gun. He was shot and killed by a community member who pursued him inside the school, Chief Mike Krantz of the Bend Police Department said at a news conference. The chief did not name the victims, the shooter or the bystander who killed him.
All schools in Bend and La Pine, a neighboring city, were closed for Friday.
Here is what we know about the shooting:
What happened?
The police received multiple 911 calls around 1 p.m. Pacific time saying that a person had entered the Silver Rail school and begun shooting. Chief Krantz said that the first emergency call came at 12:59 p.m. from a person in a car who said they had been shot at multiple times by a person with a long gun.
The school went into lockdown at 1:01 p.m. Hundreds of officers from across central Oregon responded to the shooting, with the first arriving at the scene a minute after the lockdown, the police said.
The shooter was shot and killed by an armed bystander who pursued him in the school and “engaged him,” Chief Krantz said. It was not clear whether the bystander was connected to the school. Gov. Tina Kotek of Oregon called him a hero.
Officers confirmed that the gunman was dead and went room by room to help evacuate students and teachers, finding the dead and injured victims.
What do we know about the victims and the shooter?
A teacher and three children were found dead at the scene. The children were aged 5, 8, and 11. A 7-year-old and another teacher, aged 54, were taken to a nearby hospital with critical injuries. The police did not identify any of the victims and did not provide an age for the teacher who was killed.
About 400 students are enrolled in Silver Rail school, from kindergarten through fifth grade. About 40 people work at the school.
The shooter is a 16-year-old boy from Bend, the police said. They did not identify him and said it was not clear whether he knew anyone at the school.
What are Oregon’s gun laws?
Oregon, where Democrats control the executive and legislative branches, has more restrictions on gun ownership than most other states. The gun safety advocacy organization Everytown ranks the state 12th out of 50 for the strength of its gun laws.
Bump stocks and other modifications to increase a gun’s rate of fire are banned in Oregon. Next year, a ban on high-capacity magazines and stricter background checks will go into effect. The state has also passed laws cracking down on 3-D-printed ghost guns.
The authorities in Bend said that they would not release any information about the specific type of weapon used by the shooter, or how many rounds he had fired, while the investigation was ongoing.
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