Teenager steals gun from police and attacks a school in southern Thailand, killing 1

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HAT YAI, Thailand (AP) — A 17-year-old stole a gun from police and opened fire at a public high school in southern Thailand, briefly taking people hostage Wednesday in a two-hour attack that killed one person and injured two others, police and local officials said.

Police also wounded the assailant in a gunbattle at the Patongprathankiriwat School in Songkhla province before taking him into custody to end the standoff, the provincial government said in a statement. The attack took place in late afternoon shortly after classes were dismissed.

The school’s director died in a hospital in the early hours of Thursday after being severely wounded in the attack. A student was also wounded by gunshots, while another student was injured while jumping off a building to flee the scene, Thailand's Health Ministry said.

The suspect was identified by local officials as a 17-year-old with a history of drug abuse and mental health issues. Officials said the suspect was causing a disturbance and that police were called in to deal with the situation, but he attacked a police officer and stole the gun before going inside the school.

Officials were still investigating the motive for the attack.

Gun violence isn’t uncommon in Thailand, which has one of the highest rates of gun ownership and gun-related deaths in Asia, though mass shootings are rare.

Data collected in 2017 by the groups Small Arms Survey and GunPolicy.org found that there were about 10.3 guns per 100 people in Thailand, compared with less than one per 100 in neighboring Malaysia. If illegal guns are added to the total, Thailand’s rate is 15.1.

In October 2022, a police sergeant who was fired from his job killed 36 people, including two dozen toddlers, at a day care center in the small northeastern town of Uthai Sawan. The shocking gun and knife attack spurred calls for tighter gun controls, though there have been no major reforms.

In February 2020, a disgruntled Thai soldier angry over a financial dispute with his commanding officer went on a shooting rampage in the northeastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima, killing 29 people and wounding dozens of others before police shot him dead after an overnight siege at a major shopping mall.