A 14-Year-Old Shot His Grandparents at Home, Then Killed Seven People at His School Outside Bangkok

A 14-year-old student killed seven people at his school on the outskirts of Bangkok on Friday morning after fatally shooting his grandparents at the house where he lived, Thai police said, in the country's deadliest mass killing in nearly four years.

The attack unfolded at Debsirin Nonthaburi School in the Bang Kruai district of Nonthaburi province, a suburban area northwest of the capital. Police said the shooting at the school began sometime after 9:30 a.m. and ended roughly an hour later when the boy turned the weapon on himself. Three teachers and four students were killed. Around 30 more people were injured, some in the shooting and others in the crush of students fleeing the buildings.

Before he left for school, according to investigators, the boy shot his grandfather in the kitchen of their home in the neighboring Bang Bua Thong district and shot his grandmother while she was asleep. Each was killed with a single gunshot to the head. He then took a CZ-75 semi-automatic pistol and ammunition from a cabinet in the house. The gun was registered to his grandfather. Police said he was carrying more than 30 rounds when he arrived at the school.

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters the attack was premeditated and said the boy "carried lots of pressure and tension." He added: "This is a saddening incident. He intentionally came to school today to commit this unfortunate case." Anutin also said the toll could have been far higher, noting that the shooter "could have harmed more people if he had not killed himself."

Investigators have begun assembling a picture of the weeks before the attack. Police said the boy was frequently bullied at school and that one day earlier he had been locked inside a bathroom by other students. A forensic examination of his computer showed he had downloaded video footage of mass shootings roughly a week before the attack. He had also posted a photograph of the pistol to Instagram after a festival.

Thailand has strict licensing requirements for civilian firearms but a very large number of registered guns in circulation, and a series of mass shootings over the past four years has repeatedly forced the issue back into national politics. Friday's attack is the deadliest since October 2022, when a former police officer killed 38 people, most of them small children, at a childcare center in Nong Bua Lamphu province. In 2020, a soldier killed 29 people in Nakhon Ratchasima.

School administrators suspended in-person classes at Debsirin Nonthaburi from Aug. 10 through Aug. 14. Counselors were dispatched to the campus, and the Education Ministry said it would review security arrangements at schools across the province.