Four people — three of them children and one a teacher — died Thursday at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, after a 16-year-old former student opened fire there. A parent at the scene fatally shot the attacker, according to police.
Authorities identified the attacker as Griffin J. John II, who was pronounced dead at the location. Gunfire in a single classroom left four people dead and two others with injuries, according to the department.
Officers said the incident began at approximately 3:58 p.m. Eastern Time. The individual gained access to the grounds by tossing a shotgun over the perimeter fence, fired a round at a pickup truck, and then breached the locked glass entrance before entering the building.
Dispatchers logged the first 911 call at 3:59 p.m. ET. Responding officers arrived on scene three minutes later, at 4:02 p.m.
According to police, a teacher inside the building threw her cellphone at John and brought him to the ground in an attempt to wrest the shotgun from his hands. A 36-year-old bystander who had observed the shooting from outside then entered the building and fired multiple rounds at John while he and the teacher were engaged in a physical confrontation.
Law enforcement said John had previously visited Silver Rail but held no active enrollment with Bend-La Pine Schools at the time of the attack.
Authorities identified the five-year-old victim as Rhoam Summer and the teacher as Megan Lambert, aged 25. Two additional child victims — one aged 8, the other 11 — were also killed; both families withheld permission for their names to be published. A 7-year-old girl was described by doctors as stable, while a 54-year-old teacher sustained injuries that were not life-threatening, according to details released by police on Friday.
Investigators determined the firearm recovered at the scene was a Maverick 88, a pump-action shotgun chambered in 12-gauge. They established that up to 15 rounds were discharged during the incident, though the number fired inside the classroom remained unconfirmed. Approximately 44 rounds of ammunition were found either on John's person or inside a backpack he was carrying, authorities noted.
Investigators believe John arrived at the school on foot. Three aspects of the case remained unresolved: the route he travelled, what prompted him to act, and how he obtained the weapon and its ammunition.
Approximately 150 law-enforcement and first-responder personnel were involved in the operation, authorities said. A warrant-backed search of a residence was under way alongside continuing interviews.
Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz acknowledged at a press briefing that the full motive behind the attack may never be determined, adding that investigators shared the desire for answers.
The incident was tallied as the 28th mass killing recorded across the country so far in 2026, according to figures drawn from a tracking database operated in partnership with a university research team, as one television news outlet noted in its coverage.
According to parent Joe Camarlinghi, the school had scheduled October 15 as its picture day. Those photographs, taken during the visit, were later understood by families to include the last known images of some children who did not survive.
Investigators were expected to hold the scene through at least Tuesday, October 20.
