Father Who Killed Bend School Shooter Speaks Publicly for First Time

A father who intervened during a deadly Oregon school shooting has described, minute by minute, how he confronted the gunman and helped save children in his first interview since the attack.

Kaylub Giamanco, 36, has been praised as a hero after shooting Griffin John II, 16, who had killed three children with special needs and a teacher at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend on October 15.

The day had begun routinely for Giamanco. He woke his children, helped them get ready for school photos and drove them to school before heading to work.

Several hours later, while driving home during his lunch break, Giamanco saw John firing at a red vehicle ahead of him. He then watched the teenager throw his rifle over a fence and climb after it, moving toward the school where Giamanco’s children were inside.

“That’s when panic flooded into my brain,” Giamanco told Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB).

He said he repeatedly told himself, “No, no, no, no,” as he retrieved his gun from the center console and loaded the magazine. “Full panic. I was like: ‘No, there’s children, there’s babies in there!’”

Giamanco called 911 to report that the shooter had entered the school, but ended the call before responding to all of the dispatcher’s questions.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go in. People are going to die,” he told the dispatcher.

After John fired two shots, Giamanco crawled along the school’s windows. He said he could hear young children “plead for their lives.”

“And then I started hearing gunfire,” he told OPB. “I started army-crawling faster and faster. And I told myself: ‘This is probably the last thing I’m ever going to do.’”

Giamanco followed the gunman into the building, where he saw John struggling with a teacher.

He pushed open the classroom door and fired at the teenager, who had previously been a student at Silver Rail. The teacher looked at Giamanco in fear, initially believing he was a second shooter.

“That hurt a lot,” Giamanco said.

Once the teacher had left the room, Giamanco saw John reaching for his weapon. He fired two more shots, telling OPB he wanted to “make sure he couldn’t move.”

“I was afraid of him shooting anybody else,” he said.

The first police officer arrived at the school soon afterward. Giamanco pleaded with the officer to let him call his wife, with whom he had spoken earlier about reheating leftover tacos for his lunch.

‘I called my wife to tell her I’m not coming home for tacos, and that I need her to get to the school immediately,’ he said. 

He told his wife he had killed somebody and that he had to watch children die. After getting off the phone with his wife, he called his mother. 

The father-of-two girls grew emotional as he recalled the phone call with his mother, Kenda Freeman, telling her he just took the life of a child because he was a danger to his daughters, who attended the school. 

‘I broke down at that point,’ the father said, as he held back tears retelling it. 

‘I can’t tell you what it feels like to take a life,’ he told OPB. ‘It’s really not how I thought my Thursday was going to go.’ 

Giamanco told OPB that he felt like he was the ‘last line of defense’ against the shooter. 

The father said he is grateful for the gratitude people have expressed to him, but admitted he is struggling with the reality of not being able to save the three children and one teacher who died. 

‘There is a little bit of this fear to see these families, because I do feel like I’ve failed them,’ he told OPB. ‘But I do want to meet them.’ 

Giamanco intends to use this tragic experience to make change for good – something he wouldn’t have thought he was able to do before this. 

‘I’m just a carpenter from Bend, Oregon, you know?’ he said. 

Freeman and the Bend community called Giamanco a hero and credited him with saving dozens of students’ lives. 

Police said John fired off 15 rounds before he was killed by Giamanco. He killed five-year-old Rhoam Summer and teacher Megan Lambert. He killed two other students who have not been publicly identified. 

He injured Saylor Graham, seven, and teacher Becky Drury.  

John used a gun his mother had purchased around his 16th birthday in August. Law enforcement remained unsure as to how John obtained his ammunition, saying the investigation was ‘very active.’

His motive is currently unknown.

Giamanco holds a concealed carry license to protect his family, his mother said.