By Deborah Bloom and Herbert Villarraga
BEND, Oregon, Oct 16 (Reuters) – A 16-year-old boy who shot and killed a teacher and three children in an Oregon special-needs classroom was stopped by another teacher who tackled him and an armed father who fatally shot him, officials said on Friday.
Their actions on Thursday saved other lives, the local police chief told a press conference.
A day into their investigation of the latest US school shooting, police released new details of the scene at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, where three schoolchildren aged 5, 8 and 11 were killed along with 25-year-old teacher Meghan Lambert.
A 7-year-old was wounded and listed in serious but stable condition, and another teacher suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
TEACHER ‘HELPED PREVENT MORE BLOODSHED,’ POLICE SAY
The unidentified teacher who stopped the shooter on Thursday threw her phone at him, tackled and fought him. A 36-year-old father of two students then rushed in with a legal .40-caliber pistol and fired at the suspect multiple times, killing him just before police arrived.
This teacher, who was not injured, “almost certainly helped prevent more bloodshed,” Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz, at times choking back emotion, told a press conference.
“The teacher who was willing to stand and fight for her children, that’s true heroism,” he said, without identifying her.
Kenda Freeman told the New York Times that her son Kaylub Giamanco, whose two daughters attend the school, killed the shooter, according to video posted by the New York Times of Freeman reading a brief statement.
“He is not seeking recognition but instead wishes to express his gratitude to the first responders, school personnel, and community for the outpouring of love and support,” Freeman said, adding that he asked for privacy and did not want to speak to the media.
The shooting traumatized much of Bend, a city of about 100,000 people some 175 miles (280 km) southeast of Portland, including 9-year-old fourth-grader Kalani Journeigh and her classmates, who heard the gunshots from a nearby classroom.
“All of us were screaming and we were all, like, really scared,” Kalani told Reuters, adding that she feared, “We might die.”
“My heart was beating really fast and after the couple of gunshots that we heard, it just stopped and we never heard it again,” she said.
A friend of hers was going to get therapy, she said, because “that was really traumatizing to her.”
Officials identified the shooter as Griffin J. John II, a 16-year-old former special-needs student at the school who was armed with a shotgun. He fired about 15 rounds in the classroom and had another 44 rounds on him, police said.
Police were trying to determine what motivated the shooter and how he obtained a Maverick 88 pump-action 12-gauge shotgun, Krantz said.
“Everyone wants to know why, including us,” the police chief said. “We may never get that full answer, but we want it.”
VICTIMS MOURNED
Just before the shooting, the assailant was seen throwing his weapon over the school fence and then climbing after it onto school grounds. The driver of a truck passing by verbally confronted the boy, who opened fire on the vehicle.
The assailant shot through locked glass doors and stormed a class of mixed-grade special-needs students. Police arrived within three minutes of the first call, and the shooter was already dead, Krantz said.
People in Bend gathered near the school to mourn on Friday morning, placing flowers and candles outside yellow-crime scene tape that cordoned off the scene.
“Thank God for that father,” Michael Zappa, 71, who lives just blocks from the school, said through tears. “He saved a lot of lives yesterday, and our prayers should go out for him because he has a lot on his mind today.”
The family of the slain teacher, Lambert, said working at Silver Rail was a “dream job” for her.
“She always fought for the underdog and those with special needs,” the family said in a statement that was read aloud at Friday’s news conference.
Lambert’s family also praised Giamanco and expressed gratitude to him.
“We think he is a hero,” the family said, according to the statement.
US school shootings have become more frequent in recent years. Since the start of this year, 118 people have been wounded or killed in 149 incidents involving a gun fired or brandished in a school, or gunshots striking school property, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database, a nonprofit online tracker.
A separate online database, the Gun Violence Archive, has recorded 371 mass shootings since January 2026, defining mass shootings as four or more people being struck by gunfire, not including the shooter. Three of those, including the Bend incident, occurred in public schools, the archive said.
(Reporting by Deborah Bloom and Herbert Villarraga in Bend; Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Jonathan Spicer, Sergio Non and Cynthia Osterman)
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