A gunman who stormed a school in southern Thailand and opened fire with an assault rifle has been detained after hundreds of terrified children were held hostage.Â
The attacker burst into Patong Prathan Kiriwat School in Hat Yai, Songkhla province, on Wednesday, injuring at least three people including the headmaster, police said.
Pupils fled onto surrounding roads as armed officers surrounded the building and began negotiations with the suspect, who was seen on video calmly walking through the school holding the weapon alongside a young woman believed to be a teacher.
Police said around 300 students were inside the school at the time. All hostages have since been freed.
The gunman was later wrestled to the ground and handcuffed before being taken into custody.
Footage showed victims being loaded into ambulances as shaken youngsters ran from the building.
A security guard who managed to escape said the headmaster had been shot.
‘A bullet grazed my stomach, but I escaped,’ he said. The school director was shot. There were still children inside the school who have been taken hostage.’
This is the dramatic moment a school shooter who opened fire with a machine gun was wrestled to the ground by police
The gunman stormed a school in southern Thailand and opened fire with an assault rifle, injuring at least three people
The gunman was seen on video calmly striding through the school holding the weapon alongside a young woman, believed to be a teacher
Pupils fled onto surrounding roads as armed officers surrounded the building and began negotiations with the suspect
Police in the Thung Lung district said they had received reports of the gunman, who is believed to be 18, behaving erratically and threatening to harm his mother at a house near the school.Â
When officers arrived to subdue him, the suspect allegedly carried an M4 rifle and walked into the school, where he opened fire, seriously injuring the school principal, and took a teacher and students hostage.
Thailand has one of the highest gun ownership and gun homicide rates among Southeast Asian nations.Â
Many of the firearms are believed to be sold by government and police officers, who can buy and sell them at a discounted rate under the government’s ‘gun welfare programme’.
The persistent gun culture is said to stem from a distrust of crime control policies, especially in rural areas.
Though Thai authorities have vowed to tighten gun control, there are around 4 million unregistered guns, often smuggled from war-torn countries, in circulation, the Ministry of Interior said in 2023.
Last September, a jilted husband, Santhat Oopkaew, 72, shot his estranged wife Samorn Manowan, 54, in the leg at her bustling food stall in Chiang Rai on Thursday before fleeing to a parking area and fatally shooting himself.
In July, Noi Praidaen, 61, killed five people at Bangkok’s Tor Kor Market on before shooting himself, in what his wife said was revenge for his car being scratched around six years ago.Â
Police Lieutenant General Sayam Boonsom said the attack stemmed from a long-running dispute between Noi and security guards.
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Gunman shoots three people at Thai school and takes staff and pupils hostage before being detained by cops