and officers arrived within minutes, police spokesperson Sheila Miller said.

The attacker was shot and went down inside the school shortly after officers arrived, she said.

The school has students in kindergarten through fifth grade, with about 450 enrolled last year, according to the Oregon Department of Education.

Children were taken by bus to a nearby church serving as a reunification center for families. Parents hugged, kissed and held their kids' hands as they walked to their cars, with some bringing along favorite stuffed animals or other comfort items from home.

A community grieves

Shaken residents held a vigil Thursday night, where children drew hearts in chalk on the sidewalk and held candles side-by-side with adults. Police tape blocked off the school on Friday, and flowers had been laid against the sign out front. Classes and all other activities were canceled Friday for the area's 32 schools.

Bend, which has about 100,000 residents, is the biggest city in central Oregon. Ringed by mountains, it has ballooned in population over the past three decades and is a tourism and outdoor recreation hub, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) southeast of Portland.

The shooting was the 28th mass killing in the U.S. this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.

Just four years ago in Bend, a grocery store employee who had served in the U.S. Army attacked a gunman who was spraying shots inside the supermarket. Both the employee, whom police hailed as a hero, and a customer were killed, and the gunman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

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Durkin and Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press reporters Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City, Gene Johnson in Seattle, Ed White in Detroit and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.