A Thai teenager killed at least five people and himself at a school outside Bangkok on Aug. 7 after fatally shooting his grandparents, police said.
The 14-year-old shooter, a student, fired at least 26 bullets using a gun that belonged to his grandfather. An additional 34 rounds were found, police said.
Royal Thai Police spokesperson Trairong Piwpan said the shooting happened at the Debsirin Nonthaburi School in Nonthaburi province, which is northwest of the capital, Bangkok.
One 18-year-old student told Reuters he initially thought there were firecrackers going off or someone banging an object.
“I didn’t think it was a gun at first,” he said. “There were many shots: bang, bang, bang. Then it went quiet. Then it started again.”
A witness told reporters that students hid in a classroom while they heard gunshots from another building, before police officers arrived and evacuated them.
After the shooting was over, people stood outside the school comforting each other, as police and first responders checked the premises for casualties.
Prime Minister Offers Condolences
The Thai government’s public relations department said in a post on X that Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul offered his deepest condolences to the bereaved.
“He has directed relevant agencies to provide immediate and comprehensive support to all those affected,” it said.
Video footage filmed inside the school by the Poh Teck Tung Foundation, a first responder organization, showed desks and chairs overturned, bags strewn over the floor, and bullet casings on the ground.
Fans of Thai pop star duo TLE Firstone were due to hold an event at the school on Aug. 7, but they announced on X that it had been canceled.
“Due to the violent incident that occurred at Debsirin Nonthaburi School, the team would like to express our condolences and send our support to those affected, their families, and all staff members,” the band’s official fanbase account said in a post on X.
Thailand’s worst mass killing by a single perpetrator in its recent history took place in 2022, when a sacked former policeman ran amok in a three-hour gun-and-knife attack in the northeast that killed 36 people, including his wife, son, and 22 children stabbed as they slept at a daycare center.
In 2020, a soldier killed 29 people in a shooting rampage in Nakhon Ratchasima that included a shopping mall, while in July last year, a gunman killed five people at a Bangkok market, among them security guards and a vendor, before turning the gun on himself.
In 2023, a 14-year-old killed two people and wounded five others at a luxury Bangkok shopping center, using a modified handgun that police said was likely purchased online.
Thailand had an estimated 10.3 million firearms held by civilians, equating to around 15 guns per 100 residents, the Small Arms Survey estimated in 2018.
