A 16 year old kills three children and a teacher at a Bend elementary school before a bystander shoots him dead

It began with a shot at a car, just before 1 in the afternoon, in the parking lot of an elementary school.

The first 911 call came at 12:59 p.m. on Thursday from a person in a vehicle outside Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, who reported being shot at by someone with a long gun. Local reporting from the scene says the driver of a red pickup truck confronted the teenager in the lot, and the boy fired at the truck, shattering its rear window. Police say he then got onto the school grounds, shot at the locks of the locked doors until they gave, and went inside shooting.

Inside, he killed three children, aged 5, 8 and 11, and a teacher. A child aged 7 and another teacher, aged 54, were shot and taken to hospital in critical condition, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said at a news conference on Thursday evening. What stopped the killing was not the police. A community member who saw the teenager entering the school followed him in, engaged him in gunfire and killed him before the first officers arrived. Officers reached the school within minutes of the first call and found the attacker dead inside.

Krantz said the attacker was a 16 year old Bend resident. Police have not named him. A law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told the Associated Press the weapon was a pump action shotgun purchased by his mother. Police say they do not yet know whether he had any connection to the school or to anyone in it, how many rounds he fired, or why he came. The FBI is on the scene assisting, and Director Kash Patel said every resource the local department needs will be made available.

Silver Rail serves kindergarten through fifth grade and had 459 enrolled students last year. The school went into lockdown, and the district set up a reunification point where parents collected their children. Superintendent Steven Cook said the district is heartbroken and horrified. Governor Tina Kotek, speaking at the same news conference, thanked the bystander directly, saying his actions carry a heavy emotional burden and that her thoughts are with him as well.

By CNN's count, using the Gun Violence Archive, Education Week and Everytown for Gun Safety, this was the 36th shooting on the grounds of an American primary or secondary school this year. The investigation in Bend is at its first day. The names of the dead have not been released, and the two wounded victims remained in critical condition in the reporting available as of Friday morning. The picture is an illustration of an elementary school under police guard, not a photograph of Silver Rail.