Teacher and Armed Father Stopped Shooter in Three Minutes at Bend Elementary School

On October 15, 2026, at 12:59 p.m. local time, 16-year-old Griffin J. John II approached Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, from a wooded lot beside the building. He threw a 12-gauge Maverick 88 pump-action shotgun over a fence, climbed after it, and entered through a side door into a special needs classroom. The attack lasted three minutes. By 1:02 p.m. the shooter was dead.

Police identified the victims as five-year-old kindergartener Rhoam Summer, an eight-year-old boy, an eleven-year-old boy, and 25-year-old teacher Megan Lambert. Two others were injured: a seven-year-old child and a 54-year-old teacher. Summer is the youngest person killed in a U.S. school shooting since records began in the 1960s. The other two children’s families asked that their names not be released.

John II had attended Silver Rail as a special-needs student but was not enrolled in the Bend-La Pine district at the time. He lived half a mile from the school with his mother, Shauntai May Nickerson. The shotgun was registered to her. Investigators found 44 additional rounds of bird shot, buckshot, and slugs in a backpack or on his person. He fired as many as 15 rounds.

Two drivers saw him approach. One called 911 after the shooter fired at his red pickup. The second, 36-year-old Kaylub Giamanco, father of two children at the school, followed John II into the parking lot, retrieved a legally owned .40-caliber pistol from his vehicle, and entered the building. Inside the classroom a teacher who was not injured had already thrown her cellphone at the shooter and was wrestling with him. Giamanco fired multiple times and killed the attacker.

Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said the teacher’s action “almost certainly helped prevent more bloodshed.” No school resource officer was present. The classroom served special-needs students; Superintendent Steven Cook confirmed the location. The school, built 11 years earlier, has modern security features at the main entrance. The shooter bypassed them by using the side approach.

The sequence matches patterns seen in other U.S. school shootings where bystanders with firearms intervene, yet the three-minute timeline here is shorter than most recorded attacks that reach multiple victims. Police have not released a motive. John II had no known prior criminal record. Neighbors described him as a typical teen with occasional loud arguments at home.

Bend is a city of roughly 100,000 in central Oregon. The district closed the school and nearby campuses the following day. Counseling teams remain on site. The two injured victims are in local hospitals; their conditions have not been updated publicly beyond “serious.”

Oregon law allows permitless carry for adults who can legally own firearms. Giamanco’s pistol was secured in his vehicle until he chose to retrieve it. The case adds another data point to the ongoing debate over armed civilians in schools: the intervention stopped the shooter after four deaths, but the first shots had already struck children and a teacher.

Authorities continue to interview witnesses and review camera footage from the perimeter. The Deschutes County district attorney has not announced any charges against Giamanco. The school will remain closed while the investigation and cleanup proceed.