Teen kills classmates, teachers, and his grandparents in Thai gun rampage, police say

Bangkok (CNN) — A teenage gunman went on a rampage at his high school in Thailand on Friday, killing teachers and students, police said, in one of the country’s deadliest school shootings in recent years.

The suspected gunman, 14, stormed the school after allegedly killing his grandmother and grandfather in their home, according to police.

At least six people at the school were fatally shot, three of them students and three teachers, police spokesperson Lieutenant General Trairong Phiwphan said. More than 20 other people were wounded, with nine in a critical condition. The youngest victim was just 12 years old, authorities said.

Terrified students huddled together under their desks, sobbing as gunshots rang out nearby, video filmed inside a classroom and verified by CNN showed. Further video showed students running out of the school as a staff member helped them evacuate.

An unnamed rescue worker told the Reuters news agency that “it was total chaos” when they arrived at the scene, where they administered first aid to students who had wounds to their back, chest, and arms.

Using what police said was his grandfather’s handgun, the suspect opened fire at Debsirin Nonthaburi School, a well-known secondary school of about 3,000 students, located on a busy highway in the Bang Kruai district of Nonthaburi province, north of Bangkok.

While early reports had quoted police saying the suspected gunman had died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Trairong later confirmed he remains in critical condition and doctors are providing emergency treatment.

Most of the casualties are teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17, according to the provincial Emergency Operations Center.

“This is horrible, it shouldn’t have happened,” said Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul on Friday afternoon, expressing his sadness over the tragedy.

An 18-year-old student told Reuters that he initially thought there were firecrackers going off. “Then it started getting more frequent, like ‘bang, bang, bang’ and then it went quiet at one point. And the shooting started again,” they said.

Concerned parents rushed to the school as news of the shooting spread.

The son of CNN’s senior travel producer Karla Cripps attends the school but was overseas at the time of the shooting, which began at about 10 a.m. local time.

“My son called me from Japan in a panic, telling me that he’d heard there was a shooting at his school. The kids were told to lock down in their classrooms, and he obviously was very upset,” Cripps said from outside the school.

Cripps said there was a “really sad atmosphere” at the school as ambulances continue to stream in and out, and parents comfort their children.

“My son heard his friend’s brother is in the hospital right now. He’s among the injured… It’s been terrible for everyone.”

Handgun found at school

A photo provided to CNN by a police official in Bangkok shows a single handgun and multiple rounds of ammunition scattered on the floor inside the school.

Authorities said he had been living with his grandparents rather than with his parents, but they have yet to determine how the boy gained access to the weapon.

Emergency worker Kiatikhun Verapongpradith described performing CPR on the wounded gunman.

“We rushed up and found that the perpetrator had shot himself in the right side of the head and collapsed,” he told Reuters. “As soon as we saw signs of life, we had the team bring a board to carry him to the hospital.”

Emergency workers rushed to the scene with stretchers. In one Reuters photo, one person is seen lying on a stretcher outside an ambulance, while another is attended to by a medic.

Thailand’s Central Investigation Bureau told CNN the “situation is now under control.”

High gun ownership

Gun ownership in Thailand is high, compared with other countries in Southeast Asia.

There were more than 10.3 million civilian-owned firearms in Thailand, or around 15 guns for every 100 people, according to 2017 data from the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (SAS).

Thailand ranks as the Southeast Asian country with the second-highest number of gun homicides after the Philippines, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington’s 2019 Global Burden of Disease database.

In February, a teacher died and a student was wounded in southern Thailand’s Hat Yai district after a gunman opened fire at a school. In 2022, 36 people were killed, 24 of them children, in a massacre at a childcare center in the northeast, believed to be the country’s deadliest incident of its kind.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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CNN’s Laura Sharman, Isaac Yee and June Jeong contributed reporting.