A 16-year-old resident of Bend, Oregon, killed three pupils and a teacher at Silver Rail Elementary School on Thursday afternoon before he was shot dead inside the building by an armed community member who followed him in, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said at an evening news conference.
The first emergency call reached dispatchers at 12:59 p.m. Pacific time from someone in a vehicle who reported being fired on repeatedly with a long gun, Krantz said. Within a minute, the Deschutes County center was fielding dozens of additional 911 calls from inside the school. Officers were on scene by about 1:02 p.m., roughly three minutes after the initial report, and found the suspect already down.
Who was hurt
Krantz identified the dead children as 5, 8 and 11 years old. A teacher also died at the scene. A 7-year-old child and a 54-year-old teacher were taken to St. Charles Medical Center with critical injuries, he said. Authorities did not release names on Thursday night, citing notification of families.
Investigators believe the teenager forced entry by shooting at locked doors, then moved through the school while staff enacted a lockdown directive that went out at 1:01 p.m., one minute before the first officers arrived. Krantz said the suspect had a connection to the school but declined to elaborate pending interviews.
How the gunman was stopped
According to Krantz, an officer’s initial radio report stated that a community member had seen the suspect enter Silver Rail, pursued him into the school and engaged him with gunfire. Police have not publicly named that person or said whether they are licensed to carry a weapon. Earlier in the afternoon, a police spokesperson told reporters the fatal shot may have come from a bystander, a detail Krantz confirmed in broader terms at the night briefing.
Once the suspect was down, officers evacuated classrooms room by room and set up a reunification site for families at a nearby church. Bend-La Pine Schools Superintendent Steven Cook called the attack an “unthinkable tragedy” and said district schools would cancel classes and athletics on Friday.
What comes next
Krantz said Bend police are working with state and federal partners on the investigation, including tracing the long gun and reconstructing the suspect’s movements before the vehicle shooting. Officials promised another public update on Friday. The episode adds to a year that has already seen multiple campus shootings across the United States; advocacy groups tracking such events say 2026 has recorded at least two dozen shootings on K-12 grounds through mid-October.
For Bend, a Central Oregon city of roughly 100,000 people, the attack lands in a community that has grown quickly and debated school safety funding in recent budget cycles. Thursday night, vigils were being organized locally even as investigators urged witnesses with video to preserve it for detectives.