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Firefighters and police look on as paramedics with the Portland Fire Bureau's high angle rope rescue team assess the condition of a boy who shot himself and tumbled off the Vista Bridge Thursday afternoon.

(Stuart Tomlinson/The Oregonian)

A 14-year-old boy shot and

, the Multnomah County Medical Examiner said Friday.

A woman who called 9-1-1 said she saw the boy, identified later as a student at Aloha High School, sitting on a bench at the southeast corner of the bridge Thursday afternoon at 1:40 p.m., heard a shot and then saw him tumble over the side of the bridge.

The boy died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, said Tom Chappelle of the medical examiner's office.

Portland police officers spotted the boy's body on an embankment about 75-feet below the bridge.

Trying to reach him quickly, officers formed a 3-man contact team," and approached him while carrying a ballistic shield and a beanbag shotgun. They called out several times to the boy, but he did not reply to their commands to show his hands, said Sgt. Greg Stewart, Portland police spokesman.

Unsure whether the boy was still armed or alive, one officer fired a beanbag round into the boy's buttocks. He did not react, Stewart said. Fire crews worked on the boy for about 10 minutes, bringing down a litter to pull him up, but left after determining he was dead.

His body was recovered later Thursday, officials.

--Stuart Tomlinson