A 16-year-old gunman killed three children and a teacher at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday afternoon, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said. The children were ages 5, 8 and 11. The shooter was also killed, shot by a community member who followed him into the school, bringing the total dead to five. A 7-year-old student and a 54-year-old teacher were hospitalized in critical condition.
Bend Police communications manager Sheila Miller said dispatch got the first call at about 12:59 p.m. reporting a shot fired into a car at the school. Within about a minute, multiple 911 callers reported that someone had shot through the school's locked doors, entered the building and started shooting. Officers arrived at about 1:02 p.m., and seconds later word came over the radio that the suspect was down.
A 7-year-old student and a 54-year-old teacher were taken to St. Charles Medical Center in Bend in critical condition. Police identified the shooter only as a 16-year-old Bend resident and have not released the names of the victims or the community member who shot him.
Silver Rail serves kindergarten through fifth grade, with about 450 students and 40 staff, Miller said. Families were reunited with children at Journey Church. The FBI and ATF are assisting local police, and all Bend-La Pine schools are closed Friday.
"We are stunned and heartbroken by this senseless tragedy," Superintendent Steven Cook said.
"No community should have to live through this day," Governor Tina Kotek wrote.
Local clergy planned a vigil Thursday evening at Drake Park.
The timeline is what the investigators will study now: 12:59 the first call, 1:02 officers on scene, seconds later the suspect down. Four minutes from first shot to final silence — and in between, locked doors that did not hold, a community member who did not hesitate, and 450 children who will remember this Thursday for the rest of their lives.
Three minutes — from the first 911 call to the suspect down. In those three minutes, an ordinary school day in Bend became the worst day of many families' lives. The community member who followed the gunman inside saved lives we will never know about. On Thursday evening, Bend gathered at Drake Park to grieve. On Friday, its schools stand empty. And the questions — how, and why — are only beginning.
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