Around 1:00 in the afternoon on Thursday (Oct. 15), a 16-year-old shot through the locks on the doors to the Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon. He then proceeded to kill three students and one teacher before a local bystander who’d noticed him enter the building shot him. As of this writing, another student and teacher are alive but wounded from the attack.
Police responded quickly to the flood of 911 calls, arriving at the school only a few minutes after the shooter entered. However, by that point, he was already dead. The surviving students were then taken to a nearby church, where they were reunited with their families.
Waiting for more details
Officials have yet to release more information on the shooter, his potential motives, or the weapon used, though law enforcement sources suspect it was a shotgun.
Bend Mayor Melanie Kebler spoke for many when she told reporters, “A school should be a safe place where children can learn and feel secure. What happened today should never happen. Like so many in our community, I’m struggling to make sense of a loss that feels unimaginable.”
Grieving the loss
Perhaps you’re feeling the same way. I know dropping my kids off at school will feel different today than it did yesterday, even though what happened in Oregon is unlikely to have any direct impact on our lives here in Texas. Still, I imagine the parents who are grieving the loss of their children, as well as those who will have to try and explain what happened to the ones who survived, thought much the same yesterday morning.
So, what do we do with those feelings?
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Ryan Denison and published by Denison Forum.
