Teacher tackles school shooter in Bend, Oregon: four dead including three children

A 16-year-old opened fire at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, killing a teacher and three children aged 5, 8 and 11. A fellow teacher tackled the gunman before a community member shot him dead.

Teacher tackles gunman at Oregon elementary school; four killed including three children

A 16-year-old boy shot and killed a teacher and three young children at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday before being stopped by a colleague of one of his victims and fatally shot by an armed community member, RTÉ News reports.

The three children who died were aged five, eight and 11. Their teacher, aged 25, was also killed. A seven-year-old pupil was wounded and remained in a serious but stable condition; a second teacher sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

The unidentified teacher who intervened threw her phone at the suspect, then tackled and fought him. A 36-year-old community member subsequently ran into the building and shot the attacker dead, moments before police arrived on the scene.

Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz, at times choking back emotion during a press conference, said the teacher's actions "almost certainly helped prevent more bloodshed." He added: "The teacher who was willing to stand and fight for her children — that's true heroism."

Krantz confirmed their actions on Thursday saved other lives, without identifying the teacher by name.

Before the shooting, the suspect was observed throwing his weapon over the school fence and then climbing after it onto the grounds.

Bend is a city of approximately 100,000 people, located roughly 280km southeast of Portland. Residents gathered near Silver Rail on Friday morning to mourn, leaving flowers and candles outside the yellow crime scene tape that sealed off the area.

Michael Zappa, 71, speaking about the community member who shot the suspect, said: "He saved a lot of lives yesterday, and our prayers should go out for him because he has a lot on his mind today."

According to the K-12 School Shooting Database, a nonprofit tracker, 118 people have been wounded or killed in 149 gun incidents on school property in the United States since the start of this year. The Gun Violence Archive, a separate tracker, recorded 371 mass shootings — defined as four or more people struck by gunfire, excluding the shooter — since January 2026. Three of those incidents, including the Bend shooting, took place in public schools.

Source: RTÉ News