Teacher Tackled Gunman as Oregon School Shooting Kills 3 Children and a Teacher
Police in Bend say a 16-year-old former student opened fire in a special needs classroom at Silver Rail Elementary, and a father with a legally owned pistol shot him dead.
A 16-year-old former student opened fire inside Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday, killing three children and a teacher before he was shot dead by a father who ran into the building, police said.
The dead are a 25-year-old teacher, Meghan Lambert, and three children ages 5, 8 and 11. Police have identified only the 5-year-old, Rhoam Summer. A 7-year-old girl was in serious but stable condition at OHSU in Portland, and a 54-year-old teacher, Becky Drury, was being treated for serious but non-life-threatening injuries at St. Charles Medical Center.
Police Chief Mike Krantz said the shooter was Griffin J. John II, who once attended the school. Superintendent Steven Cook said he was a special needs student. In 2020, his mother, Shauntai Nickerson, told a local television station that her then-10-year-old son had special needs and struggled with remote learning during the pandemic. Police have not offered a motive. Investigators are going through his computer, phone, social media accounts and search history, and are examining whether he was fixated on violence, including past mass shootings. Krantz stressed that the investigation is at a preliminary stage.
Krantz laid out the sequence. The teenager walked up to the school fence, threw a shotgun over it and climbed after it. A pickup driver passing by was confronted, and the shooter fired at the truck at least three times. The driver sped away and called 911. The shooter then fired several rounds into the glass of a set of double doors to force his way in, walked straight into the classroom just to the left of the entrance and began shooting. Krantz said every victim was hit in that one room, which Cook described as a special needs classroom.
A 36-year-old father, Kaylub Giamanco, whose children attend the school, had seen the gunfire and driven into the parking lot. He took his legally owned .40-caliber pistol from his vehicle, went through the forced doors, heard shooting and entered the classroom. Krantz said Giamanco found a teacher wrestling with the gunman and shot the suspect multiple times, killing him.
That teacher, whom police have not named, had already thrown her cellphone at the shooter, tackled him and fought to take the gun. She was not hurt. Krantz said her actions "almost certainly helped prevent more bloodshed." Police said they reached the school within minutes of the first 911 calls and found the shooter's body and the victims inside.
Law enforcement sources told CBS News that the shotgun, a Maverick 88 pump-action 12-gauge, was bought by the shooter's mother. Police found it near his body along with a backpack. He used three types of ammunition, birdshot, buckshot and slugs, and fired as many as 15 rounds. Officers recovered 44 more rounds at the scene. Those details come from unnamed sources and could change as the inquiry continues.
Giamanco's family said he is "not seeking recognition" and wanted to thank first responders, school staff and the community for their support. Bend now faces the work of burying three children and a young teacher.
