A 14-year-old teenager killed his grandparents this Friday and then went to his school north of Bangkok, where he shot at teachers and classmates, leaving at least 5 dead, all teachers and staff at the center, and around thirty injured before taking his own life, according to the country's authorities.
The shooting, the most serious in Thailand in almost four years, was “carefully planned,” Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said from the scene, the prestigious Debsirin School in Nonthaburi.
The first investigations suggest that the young man suffered from “academic stress” due to the alleged pressure from his grandparents to get good grades, the leader told the media.
“From what we have been able to know, the attack began in his house, where he attacked his grandparents, who were his first two victims,” said Anutin, who clarified that one of them had been a teacher, without specifying whether from that same school.
Then he went to the center, according to the police reconstruction, and fired with a pistol that belonged to his grandfather at teachers and students, leaving a preliminary toll of five dead and more than thirty injured, nine of them in critical condition, Anutin said.
The Thai Police added that no student deaths have been recorded, contrary to what had previously been reported, and that all of the deceased are teachers and staff at the center. He did not detail the identities of the injured.
The teenager later took his own life, when he still had “more than 30 bullets” available, the leader added.
“There were no warning signs”
A relative of one of the deceased teachers told EFE that, according to conversations with his relative, he does not believe there were “warning signs.”
"There was no problem (in his teaching). Everything was normal. There was nothing out of the ordinary," he declared, requesting anonymity, and clarified that his deceased relative was the vice director of the center and had been working at this school for a long time.
A few hours after the attack, which began to be reported through social media accounts of the surrounding Police, the center remained vacated and under the protection of agents and personnel of the Ministry of Education.
The shooting is the second in a school so far this year, since last February the principal of a school in Hat Yai (southern of the country) died after a man burst into the center shooting, which once again puts the debate on the possession of firearms in the country on the table, where events like this are not unusual.
This Friday's shooting was the most serious in Thailand since October 2022, when a former police officer opened fire inside a children's school in the northeast of Uthai Sawan (northeast) and killed 34 people, including 22 children and a pregnant teacher, with an automatic rifle and a knife.
With information from EFE.
