In a harrowing sequence of events near Bangkok, a teenager allegedly shot his grandparents before carrying out a deadly attack at a local school, leaving seven people dead in total, authorities reported on Friday.
The young suspect initially turned a firearm on his grandparents, using his grandfather’s gun, law enforcement stated. He then proceeded to a secondary school in Nonthaburi province, which is adjacent to Bangkok, where he tragically killed five members of the school personnel.
In the wake of the shooting, dozens of police officers and emergency response teams swiftly arrived at Debsirin Nonthaburi School. Amidst the chaos, frantic parents rushed to retrieve their children, while students and staff, in tears, sought solace in one another.
Pawarisa Maylissa, a senior student aspiring to enter medical school, expressed her terror, saying, “I was afraid that I would die, and I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to pursue my dreams.”
She recounted the terrifying ordeal: “I heard many gunshots very loudly because it seemed the suspect was on the floor directly above us. I could even hear bullets hitting the floor.”
Fifteen injured students were not struck by gunfire but hurt as they were trying to flee, deputy interior minister Polapee Suwunchwee told local broadcaster Thai PBS.
The shooter was identified as a teenage student of the school and also reported dead, according to local media reports citing authorities.
One 18-year-old student told the Reuters news agency 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.”
Second school shooting in 2026
Some reports said police officers had shot and killed the suspect, while others said he had died by suicide.
“It’s such a terrible incident. It should never have happened. How could this happen in our country?” Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters at Bangkok’s Government House.
Photos published by local media show the suspect wearing a purple school uniform and carrying a black cross-body bag, with several bullet casings visible on the ground.
It is the second school shooting in Thailand this year after a teacher died and a student was injured in the south of the country in February.
Emergency worker Kiatikhun Verapongpradith, 47, described arriving as the shooting was ongoing and his team treated students with injuries in the back, chest and arms.
They found a male teacher lying dead on an upper floor of the school, and in another room they found a female teacher with wounds in her chest and arm.
“We gave CPR for about 30 minutes and rushed her to the hospital as we could not get her heart rate up, but we tried our best,” he said.
In the 2025 academic year, the school had an enrollment of around 3,100 students and 147 teachers, according to district authorities.
Deputy education minister Akkharanan Kannakittinan said in a statement he was coordinating to provide assistance.
History of shootings
Gun ownership and gun violence are not uncommon in Thailand, which has seen a series of deadly shootings in the past six years, with children among the victims.
Thailand’s worst mass killing by a single perpetrator in its recent history took place in 2022, when a former policeman ran amok in a three-hour gun-and-knife attack in the northeast that killed 36 people including 22 children stabbed as they slept at a daycare centre.
A gunman killed five people including security guards and a vendor at a Bangkok market in July 2025 before turning the gun on himself, while a teacher died in the southern city of Hat Yai in February this year when a shooter opened fire at a school where she worked.
In 2020, a soldier killed 29 people in a shooting rampage in Nakhon Ratchasima. And in 2023, a 14-year-old used a modified handgun to kill two people and wound five others at a luxury Bangkok shopping centre.