An Oregon father who raced into his daughters’ elementary school and shot an armed attacker made a desperate promise in newly released 911 audio: “I have a gun, and I will shoot them right now.”
The call from Kaylub Giamanco captures the chaos unfolding outside Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend on Oct. 15, when the armed father intervened in an attack that left three children and a teacher dead.
“Oh my god. Hello 911. Someone’s at the school. My daughter’s school with a gun,” Giamanco says in the recording released by the Deschutes 911 Service District.
Kaylub Giamanco returns to his home in Bend, Oregon, Oct. 17, 2026. Giamanco is the man who stopped a school shooter at Silver Rail Elementary School. (Kevin Perkins for News Media)
The dispatcher told him to wait for officers to arrive.
“OK, tell me exactly what happened. Don’t do anything. Let me get an officer there, OK?” the dispatcher says. “OK, I understand. Stay on the line with me.”
Police tape surrounds Silver Rail Elementary School after a shooting on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, in Bend, Oregon. (Joe Kline/AP Photo)
The recording then captures people trying to determine where the attacker is and whether he is still shooting.
“They’re on the south side, entering the building, right now,” Giamanco says, before warning that people are being shot.
Police tape surrounds Silver Rail Elementary School after a shooting on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026. (Joe Kline/AP Photo)
“Sir, I need you to tell me what’s going on. We have help en route,” the dispatcher says.
Giamanco, a 36-year-old carpenter whose two daughters attended the school, later told Oregon Public Broadcasting that he was afraid he might not survive entering the building.
School buses wait outside Silver Rail Elementary School after a shooting on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026. (Joe Kline/AP Photo)
“That’s when I started hearing children pleading for their lives, and then I started hearing gunfire. And I just started army crawling faster and faster, and I told myself this is probably the last thing that I’m ever going to do,” he told the outlet.
Giamanco entered the school carrying a .40-caliber pistol he legally stored in his vehicle and encountered a teacher grappling with the 16-year-old attacker, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said at an Oct. 16 news conference.
According to Krantz, the teacher threw her cellphone at the gunman and tackled him before Giamanco shot him several times.
Police said three children, ages 5, 8 and 11, along with 25-year-old teacher Megan Lambert, were killed. Another child and a second teacher were wounded.
Although Giamanco has been praised for stopping the attacker, he has also expressed deep anguish over those he was unable to save.
“I want to apologize for not saving their babies,” he told OPB. “The gratitude for saving people’s children is awesome, but there were ones that I didn’t save.”
Lambert’s family praised Giamanco’s intervention in a statement read at the October news conference.
“We want the bystander who intervened to know we know he is going through a rough time, but we are grateful, and we think he is a hero,” the family said.
“You selflessly put yourself at risk for others.”