Key Takeaways
- A father intervened during a school shooting, retrieving his legally secured pistol and engaging the suspect, ultimately saving lives.
- The shooter, a 16-year-old, fired multiple rounds inside Silver Rail Elementary, resulting in the deaths of three children and a teacher.
- Witnesses reported that the suspect threw a shotgun over the school fence before entering and opening fire.
- Political leaders reacted swiftly, with calls for gun law reforms, although the focus remains on the immediate actions taken by the father and a teacher.
- Megan Lambert’s family expressed gratitude toward the father for his bravery amid the tragedy.
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
BEND, OR — A 36-year-old father whose children attend Silver Rail Elementary School watched a 16-year-old throw a shotgun over the school fence, climb after it and open fire on a passing pickup. He drove into the parking lot, took a .40-caliber pistol from his vehicle and went into the building after him. When he reached the classroom, a teacher was on the floor fighting the shooter for the gun. He fired, striking the suspect multiple times, and the attack was over before the first Bend police officer came through the door. That is the account Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz gave at a Friday afternoon media conference, the department’s second since Thursday’s shooting that killed three children and a teacher.
Police will not confirm the man’s identity. Asked directly on Friday, the department said he did not give permission to use his name. His brother, Kyle Giamanco, identified him as Kaylub Giamanco, 36, a carpenter and lifelong Bend resident with two daughters at Silver Rail, as reported by NBC News. According to his brother, he was on his lunch break when he saw the shooter, and he holds a concealed-weapon permit. Police said only that they believe he was passing through the area.
Here is the timeline Krantz laid out. At about 12:58 p.m. Thursday, two vehicles were headed westbound on Brentwood Avenue near the school. The suspect came out of an undeveloped area near Ninth Avenue, crossed the street, threw his weapon over the fence and climbed onto school property. The driver of a red Toyota pickup saw it and confronted him verbally. The suspect fired at the pickup, hitting it at least three times. The driver kept going and made the first 911 call at 12:59, reporting he was being “shot at multiple times by a person with a long gun.” He was not injured.
The driver of the second vehicle, the 36-year-old, saw the same thing. He turned into the school parking lot.
The suspect walked west along the south side of the building to a set of exterior double doors. He fired multiple rounds into the glass panes to get in. He went directly into the classroom immediately to the left of the doors. Krantz said he fired as many as 15 rounds over the course of the incident, the exact number inside the classroom still under investigation, and that every victim was shot in that room. He was using three kinds of 12-gauge ammunition: birdshot, buckshot and slugs.
The father took the pistol, which Krantz said was “legally secured” in his vehicle, and carried it toward the school. He came through the forced-open doors. He heard shooting. He saw a teacher in a physical struggle with the suspect. He went to that classroom and fired, hitting the suspect multiple times. Police said no other students were in the room besides the victims, and that the shooting had already happened by the time he engaged.
Dispatch had toned out every officer at 1 p.m. The school was ordered into lockdown at 1:01. The first Bend officers arrived at 1:02, and moments later one of them reported the suspect had been shot by a community member who had “seen the suspect enter the school and pursued him into the school and engaged him.” Three minutes is a fast response. The fight was already finished.
The teacher who went hands-on with him deserves her own paragraph. Krantz said she threw her cell phone at the suspect, then tackled him and fought to take the shotgun away. She was not hurt. She is a third teacher, separate from the one killed and the one wounded. “She almost certainly helped prevent more bloodshed,” Krantz said.
Five people died at the scene, including the suspect. The children killed were 5, 8 and 11 years old. The teacher killed was Megan Lambert, 25, of Bend. Officers and medics tried to save one boy at the scene; the other two children, both boys, and the teacher were already dead when officers arrived. At his family’s request, the 5-year-old was identified as Rhoam Summer. The other families asked that their children not be named. A 7-year-old girl who received life-saving care at the school is at OHSU in serious but stable condition. The 54-year-old teacher who was shot is at St. Charles Bend with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
Officers found a Maverick 88 pump-action 12-gauge shotgun near the suspect, along with a backpack. Between the backpack and his person he was carrying roughly 44 more rounds. How he got the shotgun and the ammunition is part of the criminal investigation, and Krantz said he would not address it Friday. A search warrant has been executed at the suspect’s home, interviews are ongoing, and about 150 law enforcement and first responder personnel are on the case, including the FBI and ATF. The school remains a crime scene until at least Tuesday.
Police identified the suspect once at the briefing and said they will not repeat his name. Neither will I. He is 16, a Bend resident, and he previously attended Silver Rail. He is not currently enrolled in Bend-La Pine Schools and is believed to have walked to the school. Superintendent Steve Cook confirmed the classroom he entered was a special-needs classroom with students of different ages, and that the suspect had been a special-needs student at that school. Police could not confirm whether he had ever been in that specific room. The school’s resource officer covers six or seven schools and was at a different one Thursday. Silver Rail had run its lockdown drill about two weeks earlier.
Picture that decision. You are driving past your children’s school. You watch a teenager throw a long gun over the fence and shoot at the truck in front of you. Your pistol is in the vehicle. The police are coming, and in this case they came fast, but he is already through the door and you are in the parking lot. The father did not wait for the sirens. He retrieved the gun, moved toward the shooting, and went in. That is mindset, and it is why I keep saying training and mindset matter more than anything you can buy. He was carrying a .40-caliber handgun against a 12-gauge loaded with buckshot and slugs, with 44 rounds in reserve, inside a school with more than 400 students. By the chief’s own account, the shooting was over when he got to the room. By the chief’s own account, that man and that teacher are the reason it stayed over.
Asked about both of them, Krantz said “the quick thinking to observe, to then park and follow someone into the school is incredible and undoubtedly saved people,” and added that “if it came natural as a protective father, that’s terrific.” Cook said, “I believe your actions saved lives.” The National Rifle Association also commended him as a hero. Police have said nothing about the legal status of his actions beyond describing them, no charging decision of any kind has been announced, and the investigation is ongoing.
The political reaction arrived before the names of the dead did. Gov. Tina Kotek said “my heart is absolutely broken today, and our hearts will stay broken in the days and weeks ahead.” Christine Drazan, her opponent in the governor’s race, said “we have to put a complete stop to shootings at our schools.” Rep. Janelle Bynum, whose district includes Bend, said “our babies are supposed to do arts and crafts at school, not use their desks as cover from gunfire.” Sen. Jeff Merkley posted that “no one should have to fear violence at school.”
Sen. Ron Wyden went further. After saying his heart “goes out to the innocent victims of today’s horrific shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School and their loved ones,” he added that “the best way to honor these victims is to at long last pass common-sense gun laws that reduce the risks of more children, parents, teachers and staff forced to live in fear of similar nightmares for their schools,” as reported by Bearing Arms.
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Wyden did not name a law. I would like to know which one he has in mind. A 16-year-old cannot legally buy a firearm. How this one came to have a pump shotgun is, by the chief’s account, the open question investigators are working on, and Wyden issued his demand before anyone had an answer to it. The door he shot through was locked. The lockdown worked as drilled. The thing that demonstrably ended this attack was not a statute. It was an unarmed teacher who tackled him and a father with a legally secured pistol who was close enough, and willing, to go through the door before the police could. If a senator believes a specific law would have changed Thursday’s outcome, he should say which one and explain how. “Common sense” is not a bill number.
Megan Lambert’s family released a statement through the police department Friday. It included a message for the man police will not name: “We know he is going through a rough time, but we are grateful and we think he is a hero. You selflessly put yourself at risk for others.”
