A teenager shot dead his grandparents at home before opening fire at a secondary school north of Bangkok, killing three teachers and three students, Thai national police said. The attack unfolded at Debsirin Nonthaburi School in Nonthaburi province on Friday.
The suspect, a student at the school, used his grandfather’s handgun and was also found dead, according to local media citing authorities.
Dozens of police officers and emergency responders converged on the scene as panicked parents rushed to retrieve their children. Fifteen students were injured while fleeing the building, though none were struck by gunfire, deputy interior minister Polapee Suwunchwee told Thai PBS.”
I was afraid that I would die, and I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to pursue my dreams,” said Pawarisa Maylissa, a grade 12 student. “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.”
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul condemned the attack, telling reporters at Government House it should never have happened.
Photos circulated by local media showed the suspect in a purple school uniform carrying a black cross-body bag, with bullet casings scattered nearby. Around a dozen mental health workers were deployed to the school as traffic backed up around the area.
Thailand has an estimated 10 million firearms in circulation — roughly one per seven residents — among the highest rates of gun ownership in the region. In February, a teenager killed a school principal and wounded two students in the south after stabbing a police officer and stealing his weapon; he had been discharged from psychiatric treatment two months earlier. In 2022, a former police officer killed 36 people, including 24 children, at a nursery in the north.
