Thai teen kills seven in rampage at home and school before shooting himself
The 14-year-old fatally shot his grandparents at their home, before killing at least five teachers and staff members in the school.
Family members of a school shooting victim mourn as bodies of the deceased are placed into ambulances at the school in Bang Kruai district, Nonthaburi province, north of the Thai capital Bangkok, on Aug 7, 2026. (Photo: AFP/Lilian Suwanrumpha)
BANGKOK: A teenage Thai student killed at least five people and himself at a school outside Bangkok on Friday (Aug 7) after fatally shooting his grandparents, police said, in the Southeast Asian nation's worst mass killing in nearly four years.
Those killed at the school were all teachers and staff, and police said the 14-year-old shooter fired at least 26 bullets using a gun that belonged to his grandfather. An additional 34 rounds were found.
Students streamed out of the Debsirin Nonthaburi School, on the capital's northwestern outskirts, as the wounded were loaded onto ambulances and teachers hugged each other and cried.
In photos circulated by emergency workers, one person is seen lying down on a stretcher outside an ambulance, while another is attended to by a medic.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters at the scene that police interrogated the suspect's close friend "who said the suspect had been under stress" related to his schooling.
"His actions also suggested that he had clearly planned" the assault, Anutin added.
"The gun was a registered firearm and was kept at a house, but somehow he gained access to it."
The prime minister said more than 30 people were injured, with around nine in critical condition.
"TRAINED FOR A LONG TIME"
Purin Khumchoo, 17, said he was among the students who had nearly been shot.
"He was my junior, but I had a feeling that he was a troubled kid. My group of friends who knew him said he was interested in the FBI and guns, and that he was bullied by many other students," Purin told AFP outside his school.
"When I saw him aiming the gun at me, I thought he looked very professional, as if he had been trained for a long time."
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.
Education Minister Prasert Jantararuangtong pledged to provide mental health assistance to students and ramp up security measures at educational institutions.
"We haven't checked whether students have brought weapons to school. Our level of security is not that tight," he told reporters at the school.
Thongchai Thanakat, a motorcycle-taxi driver who has worked in the area for 20 years, said he was waiting to pick up passengers outside the school when he heard more than 10 gunshots and saw a stream of students rushing out.
"Some of them weren't even wearing shoes," he told AFP.
SECOND SCHOOL SHOOTING
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.
"This is terrible for something like this to happen," Anutin told reporters. "I'm sad for those who died and sad for something like this to happen in our country."
The prime minister also vowed to introduce a new firearms control law.
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 teacher dead on an upper floor of the school, and in another room a female teacher with chest and arm wounds.
Kiatikhun said he was called to treat the teenage shooter after hearing a final shot.
"We rushed up and found that the perpetrator had shot himself in the right side of the head and collapsed. When we got up there, we checked his pulse, he still had one, so we started CPR."
In the 2025 academic year, the school had an enrolment of about 3,100 students and 147 teachers, according to district authorities.
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.
After that shooting, Anutin, who at the time was interior minister, ordered a raft of gun control measures, including a short-term ban on new licenses, import restrictions, and bans on people under 20 years from shooting ranges.
Longer-term measures also included a medical certificate assessing mental health and psychological condition of gun owners as well as specified validity period for some gun licenses.
Thailand had an estimated 10.3 million firearms held by civilians, equating to around 15 guns per 100 residents, the Small Arms Survey estimated.
