3 children, 1 teacher dead after shooting at Oregon elementary school, police say

3 children, 1 teacher dead after shooting at Oregon elementary school, police say

Suspected gunman shot dead by community member who pursued him into the school

A 16-year-old shooter opened fire on Thursday at an elementary school in Bend, Ore., killing four people, including three children, before being killed by an armed person ​who had pursued the assailant into the school, ​police said.

The shooter entered the school by shooting through locked doors, police said, without offering any details beyond the shooter's age.

The dead were children aged five, ​eight and 11, and a teacher. A seven-year-old student and ⁠a 54-year-old teacher were also taken ⁠to hospital with critical injuries, Bend ‌police Chief Mike Krantz told a news conference.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, appearing at the same briefing, thanked the community member who "heroically intervened to stop further loss of life."

"No parent should have to have this kind of day, and no community should ⁠have to live through this kind of day. And as we learn more about the children and the adults who have been killed or injured, and their families and their loved ones, ‌we are going to do a lot of crying, and we are going to cry together, and we're probably going to cry privately," Kotek said.

Krantz said the community member, whom he did not identify, had seen the suspect enter the school and ​pursued him.

Classes, sports and extracurriculars were cancelled Friday for all 32 schools in the Bend-La Pine district.

A police officer directs traffic near Silver Rail Elementary School, in the aftermath of the shooting. (Rob Kerr/Reuters)

Krantz said every Bend police officer went through a full day of active shooter training in August.

"Unfortunately, this is something we train for on a regular basis, and we must," Krantz said. "This is going to be a long investigation."

The shooting took place in Bend, a city of about 100,000 residents in central Oregon, southeast of Portland and adjacent to the Deschutes National Forest.

Silver Rail Elementary ⁠School serves students from kindergarten through Grade 5, roughly ages five to 11, and has about ⁠450 ⁠students and 40 staff members, officials said.

'This cannot continue to be a reality'

Gun control advocate Gabrielle Giffords, a former congresswoman who survived a mass shooting in 2011, said in a statement she was "heartbroken" by ⁠the shooting ⁠in Bend.

Police tape is seen placed outside Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Ore., on Thursday. (Joe Kline/The Associated Press)

"This cannot continue to be a reality ​in our country. Leaders at every level must step up and act,” Giffords said.

Emergency responders received a call at 12:59 p.m. PT from ​a person in a vehicle who reported ⁠being shot at multiple times by someone with a long gun, Krantz said.

In the minutes afterward, dozens of calls were received saying the shooter had entered the school, Krantz said. Law enforcement immediately directed the school to go into lockdown.

Officers arrived at 1:02 p.m., and moments later, an officer reported the suspect had been shot. Police entered and confirmed the suspect was dead, Krantz said.

The shooting was the 28th mass killing in the U.S. this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. The project counts mass killings as incidents in which four or more people other than the perpetrator are killed.

School shootings have become a recurring ⁠feature of American life, including high-profile attacks such as those at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida in 2018 and Robb Elementary School in Texas, in 2022.

Though not as deadly as those, one of the first to gain national attention was a deadly shooting in 1998 some 120 kilometres away from Bend, at Thurston High School in Springfield, Ore.

Community members grieve during a candlelight vigil at a park in Bend, Ore., on Thursday. (Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty Images)

Each shooting revives debates over gun laws in a country where gun rights ‌are protected under the Constitution's second amendment. Gun rights advocates have argued for arming teachers as a means of defence.

While they get significant media coverage due to their threat to public safety, mass shootings account for a very small percentage of the human losses the U.S. sees each year from gun violence. Depending on the metrics used, deaths in mass shootings account for about one to three per cent of all gun-related homicides, and for the last full year tracked by the Centers for Disease Control, homicides accounted for 35 per cent of all gun-related deaths in the U.S., with 62 per cent from suicides.

With files from CBC News and The Associated Press