Four killed in Bend school shooting after community member shoots teenage attacker

• The attack unfolded at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend on Thursday afternoon.¹
• A community member followed the gunman into the school and shot him, officials said.²³
• The victims killed were three children aged 5, 8 and 11, and a teacher.³
• A 7-year-old child and a 54-year-old teacher were in critical condition in hospital.³

A 16-year-old killed three children and a teacher at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday before a community member followed him inside and shot him, officials said. The teenager also died. Two other people were critically injured.³²

The children killed were aged 5, 8 and 11. The injured child was 7, and the injured teacher was 54, according to the police chief’s account reported by the Associated Press. Their later conditions had not been confirmed in the reports available on Friday morning.³

Police received the first call at 12.59pm, reporting that someone with a long gun had fired at a car outside the school. Within a minute, dispatchers received calls saying a person had entered the building and begun shooting. Officers arrived at 1.02pm; the suspect was reported shot shortly afterwards.¹

The identity of the community member who intervened, and whether they had a connection to the school, had not been made public. Police also said they did not know whether the teenager knew anyone at the school or had attended it. The Associated Press, citing an unnamed law-enforcement official briefed on the investigation, reported that he used a pump-action shotgun bought by his mother; the reports did not establish how he accessed it.³⁴

Footnotes

1. https://flashalert.net/id/BendPolice/191559 ↩ ↩²

2. https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/15/children-shooter-dead-bend-school/ ↩ ↩²

3. https://apnews.com/article/5efbf524ec119732790424fb4345807c ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

4. https://apnews.com/article/989180ae6e9aa2ed6a4239c8e3423085 ↩