Bend is a mountain town of hikers and skiers in central Oregon, the kind of place where parents assume the school run is the safest part of the day. That belief collapsed on Thursday, shortly after lunchtime, at the local primary school called Silver Rail.
Police say a 16-year-old from the city approached the school shortly before 1 pm carrying a long gun. A man sitting in a pickup in the car park tried to confront him and was fired at; his truck was left with several bullet holes. The teenager then climbed the fence and blasted his way through locked doors.
Inside, he killed three pupils, aged five, eight and 11, and a teacher. Two more victims, a pupil of seven and a female teacher in her fifties, are fighting for their lives at St. Charles hospital. No school attack in Oregon has ever claimed more lives; the previous worst, at Thurston High in Springfield in 1998, has now been surpassed.
The rampage ended within minutes, and not through the police. A local man who had seen the attacker go in followed him and shot him dead. Officers who reached the building at 1:02 pm found the suspect already lying lifeless. Investigators have not named the armed bystander; dispatch recordings cited by the BBC hint that he may be a pupil’s father. According to an anonymous law enforcement source quoted by AP, the teenager used a pump-action gun his mother had purchased within the law. The motive is unknown, and the FBI is helping local detectives.
The school’s roughly 450 pupils were evacuated class by class and driven by bus to a church to be collected by their families. That evening thousands of residents gathered with candles in Drake Park. Governor Tina Kotek, who ordered flags flown at half-staff, put the town’s shock into words: “No parent should have this day.” All schools in the district stayed closed on Friday.
