The Oregon high school mass shooting gunman has been named as 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer by multiple law enforcement officials late on Thursday. Mercer earlier killed 10 people and injured at least seven more at Oregon's Umpqua Community College.

Harper has also been confirmed as now dead, although the precise details of his death have not been verified. Investigators are currently interviewing members of his family as well as his friends to get a picture of who he was and any suspected motivation behind the mass killings.

One student at the high school, Cassandra Welding, earlier spoke to media representatives and described how she witnessed the shooting commencing.

Welding said, "I heard a popping noise, almost like a balloon popping. I knew something wasn't right and so I get down. We locked the doors, turned off the lights, and we were all pretty much in panic mode. We called 911 and called our parents, our loved ones ... We didn't know what was going to happen, if those were our last words or not."

Harper reportedly started shooting in one building of the school before quickly moving to the science building to continue his rampage. There were at least two separate classrooms where victims were found dead and injured.

Douglas County Fire Marshal Ray Shoufler has said, "We arrived to find multiple patients in multiple classrooms. Law enforcement was on scene and had the shooter neutralized."

A Facebook or Twitter account of the shooter has not yet been revealed.