Five weeks before launching a deadly attack at an elementary school, teenage gunman John J. Griffin was photographed staring into the camera with an unsettling, hardened expression.
Griffin, 16, killed three children—aged five, eight and 11—and their teacher at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday afternoon.
A 54-year-old teacher was critically wounded, while a seven-year-old wheelchair user was shot in the face. Both victims remained hospitalized.
The first victim identified was five-year-old Rhoam Summer. Authorities have not yet released the names of the teacher or the two other children who died.
Griffin opened fire after entering a special education classroom—one he had attended himself as a young child.
In a haunting photograph posted by his mother, Shauntai Nickerson, last month, Griffin appeared gaunt and sullen, with a patchy moustache and goatee.
John J Griffin, 16, who killed three children aged five, eight, and 11 at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday is pictured with his mother Shauntai Nickerson
Rhoam Summer, left, has been named as one of the victims of the shooting. He is pictured with his mother
In a 2020 interview with a local television station, Nickerson said she welcomed the return to in-person schooling because her son was struggling with remote learning during the Covid lockdowns.
‘I think it will be great for Griffin, because I am not certified teaching a special needs student,’ she told KTVZ 21.
‘And I think it will be great for my son to get the help that he needs from the skilled teachers that he needs to get it from.’
Griffin had been enrolled in the NEST program—short for Nurturing Empathy, Safety and Trust—which supports special education students facing ‘intensive behavioral and social skills challenges’.
Police said Griffin used his mother’s Maverick 88 12-gauge pump-action shotgun in the attack. The weapon was reportedly purchased around the time of his 16th birthday.
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Nickerson, 43, works as a medical aide at Touchmark Living Centers. Her record includes numerous traffic violations, and Bend police charged her with DUI at 1.37am on July 29, 2018.
She was convicted of harassment in 2023, while a separate fourth-degree assault charge stemming from the same incident was dismissed.
When reporters approached her outside her Bend home, Nickerson described her son as ‘a good boy’ and said she would have intervened if she had been able to.
Griffin was shot dead minutes after he began his rampage by Kalub Giamanco, 36, (pictured) a dad of two children at the school who heard the gunshots as he drove home for his lunch break
Giamanco’s wife Kelsey (center) confirmed he was the hero who intervened by running inside the school. The couple have two children at Silver Rail Elementary School
Silver Lake Elementary School in Bend is pictured on Friday afternoon in the wake of Thursday’s mass shooting that killed three young students and a teacher
Investigators said he used the shotgun to blast through the school’s ‘safety vestibule’, a security system intended to protect students from an armed attacker.
Griffin’s motive is unknown, but he attended the school as a child before moving on to the local high school.
Police raided Griffin’s family home on Thursday night, seizing computers and other electronic devices. Family was said to be cooperative.
Griffin was shot dead minutes after he began his rampage by Kalub Giamanco, 36, a dad of two children at the school who heard the gunshots as he drove home for his lunch break.
Giamanco’s wife Kelsey and brother Kyle, along with several of his friends, confirmed he was the hero who intervened by running inside the school.
He holds a concealed carry permit and is friends with the family of the seven-year-old in the wheelchair who was wounded.
Giamanco shot Griffin dead within moments of the massacre beginning just before 1pm on Thursday.