Teacher fought Oregon school gunman before passing parent shot him, police say

Four people were killed at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday 15 October. Police say a teacher fought the 16-year-old gunman in a classroom before a father of two pupils followed him inside and shot him dead. [2] [3]

The dead were three children aged five, eight and 11, and a 25-year-old teacher, Lambert. Police named the youngest child as Rhoam Summer; the families of the other two children asked that their names not be released. A seven-year-old pupil and a 54-year-old teacher were also wounded. On Friday, police chief Mike Krantz said the child was in a serious but stable condition in hospital in Portland, while the teacher was being treated in Bend. [2] [3]

Krantz said the attacker, Griffin J. John II, had previously attended the school. A driver called emergency services after seeing the teenager outside with a gun and confronting him; the teenager fired at the driver’s pickup truck. He then shot through the glass of locked school doors, entered a special educational needs classroom and fired as many as 15 shotgun rounds, according to the police account. [3]

Another driver saw the shooting outside. Krantz said the man took a pistol from his vehicle and followed the teenager into the school. Inside the classroom, a teacher had thrown her phone at the attacker, tackled him and was fighting to take the shotgun from him. The man saw them struggling and shot the teenager several times, police said. The teacher who fought him was not injured. [3] [5]

The man’s mother identified him to reporters as Kaylub Giamanco; police did not publicly name him. Krantz said the teacher’s actions almost certainly prevented more bloodshed. Investigators found about 44 shotgun rounds with or near the attacker, but how many more people might have been harmed without the interventions cannot be known. Police were still investigating his motive and how he obtained the gun. [2] [3]