Father who killed Oregon school shooter describes deadly attack, taking down armed teen

BEND, Ore. (KPTV/Gray News) - In an interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting, Kaylub Giamanco, 36, the man who took down the elementary shooter last week, described what he saw that day as he confronted the armed teen.

Giamanco explained in the interview about crawling through a damaged school building, hearing children crying for help and encountering the 16-year-old shooter at Silver Rail Elementary School.

The Oregon father, whose two daughters were at the school at the time of the shooting, said panic set in after seeing the gunman throwing a rifle over a fence at his daughters’ school.

He said he opened his center console, where his gun was, repeating “no, no, no, no, no.”

Giamanco said he then moved toward the school building after hearing children pleading for help and hearing gunfire. He said he army-crawled faster, thinking it could be the last thing he ever did.

The father said he moved low past a recycling bin and into a corridor toward the doors, then crawled through the bottom of a broken-out window onto a rug in a small entryway with stairs. He said the special-needs classroom was to his left.

Giamanco said he got to his hands and knees, checked his weapon to confirm a live round was chambered, then looked through a window into the classroom.

He noted seeing a teacher on the left struggling with the gunman holding a rifle on the right. He said both were turned sideways to him, with the shooter not knowing he was there.

Giamanco said he then pushed the door open, stepped in and fired.

The 36-year-old called his mother after what occurred.

“I just had to take the life of what I think might be a child because he went into my daughters’ school with a gun,” he recalled telling her.

Giamanco said she told him to calm down, that he did the right thing and saved lives.

Three children — ages 5, 8 and 11 — and a teacher were killed in the school shooting last Thursday. The teen shooter was identified as a former student of the school, 16-year-old Griffin J. John II.

Police said John blasted his way through locked doors with a shotgun and attacked a special-needs classroom.

Another student was critically injured and a teacher was injured and hospitalized.

Police have said Giamanco was carrying his gun legally in his truck and have credited him and the unarmed teacher who confronted the gunman with saving lives.