Parents wait behind police tape for students from Reynolds High School to arrive by bus in Troutdale, Oregon, June 10, 2014.
Gunman, Victim Dead in Oregon School Shooting
A shooting at an Oregon high school Tuesday morning left one student and the gunman dead, the local police chief said.
Police responded to a report of gunfire about 8:00 a.m. at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, east of Portland, a Troutdale police official said.
"A gunman entered the high school this morning, shot one student. Unfortunately, that student has died," said Troutdale police chief Scott Anderson, according to the French news agency AFP.
"The gunman was located and the gunman is also deceased. ... The situation is contained," he added.
A gunman and a student are dead after an Oregon school shooting Tuesday morning. Parents were reunited with their children in a nearby supermarket parking lot in Troutdale, Oregon, June 10, 2014.
A local law enforcement official said that 30 to 40 Troutdale officers responded to the scene. Multnomah County Sheriff's deputies also were involved, police said.
About an hour later the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office said the situation was under control.
The Oregonian reported that teacher Todd Rispler was also injured in the shooting.
Nikki Vance, the mother of a student at the school, said Rispler has taught at the school since at least 1999, The Oregonian reported.
Lt. Steve Alexander, a spokesman for the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, said police believe there was just one shooter.
Second largest school in Oregon
Reynolds High, with 2,800 students, is the second largest high school in Oregon, drawing students from five surrounding cities, according to The Oregonian. It is named for a now-defunct aluminum plant that operated near the school.
Students were evacuated from the school, hands on their heads, and reunited with their parents in a nearby supermarket parking lot, the AP reported.
About 60 law enforcement officers and 19 medical personnel were on the scene at the school, according to local KOIN television.
The shooting is the latest in a spate of such incidents over the past few weeks in the western United States, AFP reported.
On May 23, a college student, who had mental problems and was the son of a Hollywood director, went on a gun rampage at a college campus in Santa Barbara, north of Los Angeles, killing six people and then himself.
On June 5, a gunman killed one person and injured two others on a college campus in Seattle, in what the local mayor denounced as America's "epidemic of gun violence."
On Sunday, a couple with possible links to anti-government militia shot dead two police officers execution-style in a Las Vegas pizza restaurant, before killing another civilian nearby and then themselves.
On Tuesday President Barack Obama said the United States needs to "do some soul searching."
During a question-and-answer discussion about student loan debt on the social media site Tumblr Obama said that mass shootings are becoming the norm. He said the U.S. is the only developed country in the world where such violence is tolerated.
The president said as a parent, it "terrifies" him.
"People ask me what I’m proudest of and what are my biggest frustrations as president. My biggest frustration is that this society hasn’t been willing to take some basic steps to keep guns out of the hands of people who can do damage," Obama said.
The online event with the president occurred just hours after the shooting.
Some information for this report provided by Reuters, AFP and AP.
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