Police seek answers after children fatally shot at Oregon school

Police in Bend, Oregon, were left questioning how a 16-year-old boy managed to shoot dead three children and a teacher at Silver Rail Elementary School, and where he acquired the long gun used in the attack. The incident occurred on Thursday afternoon, with the teenager shooting through a locked door at the central Oregon school.

The youth killed three children aged 5, 8, and 11, along with one teacher before he himself was shot dead by an armed bystander who had tracked him into the school, according to Bend Police Department spokesman Mike Krantz. The bystander's identity remains unknown, though 911 calls suggest he could have been a father of a child at the school.

Oregon Governor Tina Kotek praised the bystander's heroic intervention to prevent further loss of life. In addition to the five fatalities, a 7-year-old student and a 54-year-old teacher were hospitalized with critical injuries. The shooter's connection to the school, which accommodates approximately 450 students from kindergarten through the fifth grade and about 40 staff members, is unclear.

Reports from CBS News, based on unnamed law enforcement sources, indicate the attacker used a shotgun purchased by his mother.