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A gunman was dead and at least two people, including children, had been taken to a hospital after a shooting Thursday afternoon at Silver Rail Elementary School, Bend police said.
Police did not immediately release the total number of victims or their conditions. Sheila Miller, a Bend Police Department spokesperson, told reporters that authorities had “multiple victims” and that officials did not know the status of those taken to a local hospital.
Police said there was a single suspect, who was inside the school and is dead. Investigators were working to determine who shot him. Miller said she could not yet confirm the person’s identity, adding that it “may have been a bystander.”
The first report reached dispatchers at 12:59 p.m. local time, when a caller said a man had fired a shot into a car outside the school. About a minute later, dispatchers received multiple 911 calls from inside the building reporting an active shooter, and an alert went out ordering officers to a critical scene.
Officers arrived at 1:02 p.m., within about three minutes of the first call. Moments later, police learned over the radio that the suspect was down. “The shooter was down seconds later,” Miller said.
Bend-La Pine Schools, the district that includes Silver Rail Elementary, said in a social media post that the school remained on lockdown with police and emergency services at the scene. It urged residents to avoid the area. Authorities later went room by room to evacuate everyone inside, Miller said.
Students and staff were taken by bus to a reunification center for families at the nearby Journey Church. Between 400 and 450 children in kindergarten through fifth grade attend the school, which has a staff of more than 40.
At least two people were taken to St. Charles Bend, the hospital system said, though their condition was not known. The health system said its hearts were “with the affected families, our community and the first responders.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said on X that agents from the bureau’s Portland office were at the scene assisting local authorities. “We will make every resource they need available,” he said.
At least one agent was at the school Thursday afternoon, with more on the way. Federal law enforcement officials said the Oregon State Police may take over as the lead agency in the investigation.
Gov. Tina Kotek said she was “closely monitoring the situation” and thanked first responders at the scene.
Bend is a city in central Oregon, more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Portland. The United States has the highest rate of gun-related deaths among developed nations, and firearms are widely available.
The Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, has counted more than 360 such incidents in the country so far this year.
The deadliest school shooting in US history occurred at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007, when a student killed 32 people and wounded 17 others before taking his own life.
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