14-Year-Old Kills Grandparents, Then Six More at Thai High School Before Dying

A 14-year-old boy killed his grandparents at their home Friday morning, then drove to his high school outside Bangkok and opened fire, killing at least six more people before he died, according to Thai police.

The shooting happened at Debsirin Nonthaburi School in the Bang Kruai district of Nonthaburi province, northwest of the capital. Royal Thai Police spokesperson Trairong Piwpan confirmed the attack to The Associated Press. The school enrolled roughly 3,100 students and 147 teachers during the 2025 academic year, according to district authorities.

Police told Reuters the shooter fired at least 26 rounds and was found carrying 34 more. The gun belonged to his grandfather, according to police. Deputy Interior Minister Polapee Suwunchwee told reporters at the scene that the shooter killed his two grandparents at home before driving to the school, and that the shooter later died at a hospital.

Thailand's government has not given a single, consistent casualty count. Trairong told Channel 3 that three teachers and three students were killed, with 15 others injured and two in critical condition. Health Minister Pattana Promphat put the injury count at 22, with nine critical, and noted some injuries came from falls rather than gunfire. Deputy Interior Minister Polapee said five teachers died. Thai public broadcaster Thai PBS separately reported three teachers and three students killed. None of these figures have been officially reconciled as of Friday.

An 18-year-old student told Reuters he didn't immediately register the sound as gunfire. "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."

Emergency worker Kiatikhun Verapongpradith, 47, told Reuters his team found a male teacher dead on an upper floor and a female teacher with chest and arm wounds in another room. "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. She did not survive.

A witness said students barricaded themselves in a classroom while gunfire echoed from another building, waiting until police knocked and cleared a path for them to evacuate.

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul offered condolences and said he ordered officials to assist victims. Education Minister Prasert Jantararuangtong confirmed both teachers and students were among the dead. Deputy Education Minister Akkharanan Kannakittinan said he was coordinating support for the school community.

Trairong said investigators have not established a motive. He said the weapon appears to have been taken from a family member, matching the account that the shooter's grandfather owned the gun.

A Pattern, Not an Isolated Event

This is Thailand's second school shooting of 2026. In February, a 17-year-old stole a gun from police and opened fire at a public high school in southern Thailand, taking hostages during a two-hour standoff that killed one person and injured two others in the Hat Yai area.

Thailand has had a string of mass-casualty shootings over the past six years despite a reputation for tighter gun laws than the United States. In October 2022, a former police officer killed dozens of people, including 22 children, in a gun-and-knife rampage at a daycare center in the country's northeast, the worst mass killing by a single attacker in Thailand's recent history. A gunman killed five people at a Bangkok market in July 2025 before turning the gun on himself. In 2020, a soldier killed 29 people in a shooting rampage in Nakhon Ratchasima. In 2023, a 14-year-old used a modified handgun to kill two people and wound five others at a Bangkok shopping mall.

Thailand has now had at least two mass shootings carried out by 14-year-olds in three years, both involving guns taken from family members or otherwise illegally obtained. This raises an obvious, unresolved question for Thai authorities: how a country with strict formal gun licensing keeps seeing legally-owned firearms end up in the hands of minors who use them to kill.

None of the coverage reviewed here, from NPR, the AP, CBS News, the New York Post, or Al Jazeera, offers a resolution to the conflicting casualty numbers. Thai officials themselves have not reconciled Trairong's count of six dead against Deputy Interior Minister Polapee's count of five teachers dead alone, on top of the two grandparents killed at home. That's at least eight confirmed dead when the shooter is included, and Thai authorities have given no indication of when a final, verified death toll will be released.

Investigators still have not disclosed a motive, and it remains unclear whether the shooter had any documented history of mental health issues, disciplinary problems, or threats made before Friday. Thai police have not said whether the grandfather's firearm was legally registered or how it was stored.