Parent of Two and Teacher Who Tackled Him Hailed as Heroes in Bend School Shooting
Bend police identified the father of two students who shot the Silver Rail Elementary gunman and the teacher who tackled him, saying both likely saved lives. Two of the four victims were also publicly identified.
Bend police on Friday credited two people with stopping the 16-year-old gunman who killed four people at Silver Rail Elementary School the day before: a father of two students who followed the shooter into the school and shot him, and a teacher who threw her cellphone at the attacker and tackled him.
The man was identified by family members as Kaylub Giamanco, 36, NBC News and CBS News reported. Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said Giamanco retrieved a pistol that was legally secured in his vehicle, entered the school after hearing shots, and fired multiple times, killing the suspect. Police said the bystander likely saved lives by stopping the shooter before he could reach more victims.
A teacher in the special education classroom the gunman attacked also took action, Krantz said. She threw her cellphone at the suspect, tackled him, and fought to take away his 12-gauge pump-action shotgun. The teacher survived unharmed. “She almost certainly prevented more bloodshed,” Krantz said.
Victims identified, investigation continues
Krantz identified two of the four victims: 5-year-old Rhoam Summer and 25-year-old teacher Megan Lambert. The families of the other two child victims, boys ages 8 and 11, asked that their names not be shared. All four were killed in the same special education classroom.
The 16-year-old suspect was Griffin J. John II, a former student at Silver Rail, police said. Two other people were wounded: a 7-year-old girl who was in serious but stable condition, and 54-year-old educational assistant Rebecca “Becky” Drury, whose injuries her family described as serious but not life-threatening.
New details on how the attack unfolded
The first 911 call came at 12:59 p.m. Thursday, reporting that someone had shot at a car near the school, Krantz said. The teenager had traveled to the school on foot, thrown his shotgun over a fence, and climbed onto school property. A driver in a red pickup truck confronted him and was shot at at least three times before making the emergency call.
The gunman then shot his way through locked doors into the classroom. Officers arrived at 1:02 p.m. and found the suspect already dead. Police recovered a Maverick 88 pump-action 12-gauge shotgun and a backpack holding about 44 additional rounds, including bird shot, buck shot and slugs.
The motive remains unknown. “Everyone wants to know why, including us,” Krantz said. “We may never get that full answer, but we want it.” The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is tracing the shotgun, and a school resource officer assigned to six or seven schools was not at Silver Rail when the attack began, police said.
President Donald Trump called the armed bystander a “great hero” outside the White House on Friday, and the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action praised the intervention. In Bend, neighbors left flowers and plush animals at a makeshift memorial outside the school, and the family of the slain teacher said Silver Rail Elementary was “her dream job.”
Reporting based on coverage by USA Today and the Statesman Journal.
