Bend carpenter who shot Silver Rail school gunman speaks out: 'People are going to die'
Kaylub Giamanco, 36, killed 16-year-old shooter Griffin J John II at Silver Rail elementary in Bend, Oregon, on 15 October. He now speaks publicly for the first time.
Oregon father recounts the moment he entered Silver Rail elementary to stop the shooter
Kaylub Giamanco, a 36-year-old carpenter from Bend, Oregon, has spoken publicly for the first time about the day he fatally shot a school gunman, telling a 911 operator before entering the building: "I have to go in. People are going to die."
According to theguardian.com, Giamanco — whose children attend Silver Rail elementary school — was only in the area on 15 October because he had decided to go home for lunch with his wife instead of eating the meal he had brought to work.
He spotted a man dressed in black, armed with a gun, moving toward the school. For a moment, Giamanco said, he thought it was a prank. Then he watched the man fire the weapon and climb over the school fence. Giamanco retrieved a .40 caliber handgun from his center console, drove into the school parking lot, called 911, and followed the shooter over the fence himself.
The gunman was identified as Griffin J John II, a 16-year-old former student at Silver Rail. He shot six people during the attack, killing 25-year-old teacher Megan Lambert and three children, including five-year-old Rhoam Summer.
Giamanco told Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) in his first interview since the shooting that he tracked Griffin through the school without being seen. At one point, hearing children pleading for their lives, he dropped to his hands and knees.
"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 OPB.
He made his way through a broken window and toward a special education classroom Griffin had entered, where a teacher was already fighting with the shooter. Giamanco entered the room and fired. Griffin fell but reached for his weapon. Fearing he would shoot again, Giamanco fired two more times.
In the days since, he said he has lain awake at night thinking of what he witnessed and the teenage perpetrator, questioning whether he could have done more.
"I want to apologize for not saving their babies," Giamanco told OPB. "The gratitude for saving people's children is awesome, but there were ones that I didn't save."
Giamanco said he wants to see school resource officers stationed at every school and has expressed interest in raising funds for school safety efforts.
Source: Google News MT