At least 13 people were killed and 20 more injured by a gunman who opened fire Thursday at a southwestern Oregon community college, officials said.
The gunman was no longer a threat, said Andrea Zielinski, a spokeswoman for Douglas County Sheriff's office.
Zielinksi did not say whether the gunman was in custody or dead.
“It’s sad that we’re now in that horrible club of schools that have had to deal with this,” Douglas County Commissioner Tim Freeman told the Los Angeles Times. “I hope communities around our nation will pray for us.”
“It’s a tragic event and we’re right in the middle of it,” Douglas County Commissioner Chris Boice said.
The shooting is among the worst mass killing at schools over the past decade. Among the most notorious is the Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999 in which 13 people were killed and the Sandy Hook Elementary Scool shooting in Connecticut in 2012, which claimed 28 lives, including the shooter, who killed himself.
At the White House, President Obama was briefed by officials. Spokesman Josh Earnest said: "sensible steps that can be taken to protect our communities from gun violence continues to be a top priority of this administration."
The shooting was reported about 10:40 a.m. at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, about 180 miles south of Portland and about 70 miles from Eugene. The school has about 3,300 full- and part-time students.
Joe Olson, the former president of the school, told the Associated Press that the school has only one security officer on duty at a time, and that person isn't armed.
The shooting stunned the small community of more than 20,000 people.
Freeman said when his daughter was a freshman, there was a shooting at her high school several years ago, and his 19-year-old son was on campus on Thursday during the shooting.
“We went through this once my daughter,” Freeman said. “Much like everybody else, we had an emergency plan,” he said. “He immediately left campus, went to a friend’s house, to a safe location, and called me.”
“Our community has had to deal with this on some level before,” Freeman said. “You can tell it’s a sad day here, and you see that on people’s faces.”
Fall classes began on Monday, Freeman said.
Oregon Atty. Gen. Ellen Rosenblum said that 13 people had been killed in several classrooms.
State Police Lt. Bill Fugate told KATU-TV that at least 20 more were injured.
A photographer for the Roseburg News-Review newspaper said he saw people being loaded into multiple ambulances and taken to the local hospital.
Mercy Hospital in Roseburg confirmed that it has received nine patients and three more were on the way.
PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center in Springfield, Ore., tweeted that two victims of the shooting had arrived and more were expected.
This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
Staff writers James Queally, Carla Rivera and Ann Simmons contributed to this report.
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