The victims were children ages 5, 8 and 11, and 25-year-old teacher Megan Lambert. A 7-year-old girl and a 54-year-old teacher were wounded. The girl was in serious but stable condition after being flown to a children’s hospital in Portland, officials said.

Police said the 16-year-old shooter, a former Silver Rail student identified as Griffin J. John II, approached the school on foot shortly before 1 p.m. He threw a 12-gauge shotgun over a fence and began climbing it. A driver in a red pickup saw him and confronted him; the shooter fired at the truck, but the driver was not hurt.

The teenager then crossed the fence, shot through glass doors on the playground side of the school and entered a special education classroom. One teacher threw a cellphone at him and tackled him, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said. Another teacher, identified by her husband as Becky Drury, shielded the wounded girl and was shot in the arm, according to a family friend. Both Drury and the child are expected to survive.

Kaylub Giamanco, a father of two Silver Rail students, saw the pickup being shot at while driving past on his lunch break. He ran into the school and found the teacher wrestling with the gunman. Giamanco shot the teenager several times with a .40-caliber handgun that police said had been legally secured in his truck. The shooter died at the scene. Police said he had 44 additional rounds of ammunition.

At a Friday news conference, Krantz confirmed the suspect’s identity and said he would not repeat his name. He praised the people who intervened, including the teacher who fought to protect students. “When someone is willing to risk their own lives for others? A teacher who is willing to stand and fight for her children? Incredible,” he said.

Investigators have not determined what motivated the shooting or how the teenager obtained the shotgun and ammunition. The gun was registered to his mother, Shauntai May Nickerson, according to a law enforcement official. Investigators searched the family’s apartment and seized electronic devices under a warrant. The official said Nickerson cooperated.

Silver Rail’s updated security measures focused on its front entrance, while the shooter entered through the side of the building. Superintendent Steve Cook said the district would investigate how he got inside and review its safety practices. A school resource officer served six campuses and was not at Silver Rail that afternoon. The school remained cordoned off as a crime scene, with investigators expected to continue their work into early next week.

The shooting shook a city still marked by a 2022 attack in which a 20-year-old man killed two people and himself at a grocery store about three miles from the school. “It’s awful that we know what this is like already,” said Michael LaMaita, who lives near Giamanco. “It’s so weird to have it happen twice.”

Schools across Bend briefly went into lockdown Thursday, and citywide school and recreational activities were canceled Friday. Nearly 200 people sought mental health support at the city’s main library that morning. Parents said they were looking for counseling for children who heard the shooting or were in classrooms near the attack.

Brian Jolly, grandfather of 5-year-old victim Rhoam Summer, remembered a bright, playful boy who often spent time at his home and garden. “The whole thing is senseless, and a shock,” he said.

Nickerson told a local television station in 2020 that her son had struggled with remote learning during the COVID-19 school closures. On Friday, she said she had seen no warning signs and wished she could have prevented the violence. “If I could have prevented this, I would have,” she said.