A 14-year-old Thai student killed at least seven people, including his grandparents, before turning the gun on himself at a school outside Bangkok on Friday, 7th August, in Southeast Asia’s worst mass killing in nearly four years.
Police said the shooter fired at least 26 rounds from a gun belonging to his grandfather, while a further 34 rounds were recovered at the scene. The attack took place at Debsirin Nonthaburi School on Bangkok’s northwestern outskirts. The school had about 3,100 students and 147 teachers enrolled during the 2025 academic year.
Officials initially put the death toll at eight before revising it to seven. Two teachers and three other members of staff were killed at the school, along with the shooter’s grandparents. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said more than 30 people were injured, with about nine in critical condition, although police later gave different figures. National Police spokesman Trirong Phophan told Reuters that 15 people were injured, while police separately said 23 people had been wounded.
Students streamed out of the school as the injured were loaded into ambulances, while teachers hugged one another and wept. Photographs published by local media showed the suspect wearing a purple school uniform and carrying a black cross-body bag, with several spent cartridge cases visible on the ground.
Emergency worker Kiatikhun Verapongpradith, 47, described arriving while the shooting was still under way. His team found a teacher dead on an upper floor of the school and, in another room, a female teacher with gunshot wounds to her chest and arm. “We gave CPR for about 30 minutes and rushed her to hospital because we could not restore her heartbeat, but we tried our best,” he said.
Verapongpradith said he was then called to treat the teenage shooter after hearing a final gunshot. “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.” The suspect was then taken to hospital.
An 18-year-old student told Reuters he initially thought he was hearing firecrackers. “I didn’t think it was a gun at first,” Verapongpradith said. “There were many shots: bang, bang, bang. Then it went quiet. Then it started again.”
Purin Khumchoo, 17, said he was among the students who narrowly escaped being shot. “He was my junior, but I had a feeling 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,” he told AFP outside the 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.”
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.
Police discovered the bodies of the suspect’s grandparents, with whom he lived, after visiting their home following the school shooting. Charnvirakul said police had questioned one of the suspect’s close friends, who said he had been under stress related to his studies. “His actions also suggested that he had clearly planned” the attack, Charnvirakul added. “The gun was a registered firearm and was kept at the house, but somehow he gained access to it.”
“This is terrible. Something like this should never happen,” Charnvirakul told reporters at the scene. “I’m saddened by the loss of life and by the fact that something like this has happened in our country.” He vowed to introduce a new firearms control law.
Education Minister Prasert Jantararuangtong pledged to provide mental health support for students and strengthen security measures at schools. “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.
Friday’s attack was the second school shooting in Thailand this year, following a shooting at a school in Hat Yai, southern Thailand, in February, in which a teacher was killed and a student was injured. After that attack, Charnvirakul, who was interior minister at the time, ordered a series of gun control measures, including a temporary ban on new licences, restrictions on imports, and a ban on people under 20 using shooting ranges. Longer-term measures included requiring gun owners to provide a medical certificate assessing their mental health and psychological condition, along with introducing validity periods for certain licences.
Gun ownership and gun violence are relatively common in Thailand, which has experienced a series of deadly shootings over the past six years, including attacks in which children were among the victims. According to the Small Arms Survey, civilians in Thailand are estimated to own 10.3 million firearms, equivalent to around 15 guns per 100 people.
The country’s deadliest mass killing by a lone perpetrator in recent history took place in 2022, when a former police officer carried out a three-hour gun and knife attack in the northeast, killing 36 people, including 22 children who were stabbed to death as they slept at a day-care centre. In 2025, a gunman killed five people, including security guards and a vendor, at a Bangkok market before turning the gun on himself. In 2020, a soldier killed 29 people in a shooting rampage in Nakhon Ratchasima, while in 2023, a 14-year-old used a modified handgun to kill two people and wound five others at a luxury shopping centre in Bangkok.
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