Kaylub Giamanco Describes Anguish After Killing Oregon School Gunman

What changed

Kaylub Giamanco, 36, has described how he entered Silver Rail Elementary School in Oregon and fatally shot Griffin J John II after the former pupil attacked the school. Three boys, aged five, eight and 11, and teacher Megan Lambert were killed; another child and teacher were wounded. Giamanco’s interview, published on 23 October 2026, also laid bare his anguish over the children he could not save.

Why it matters

The account puts a human shape around the attack’s crucial seconds. Giamanco heard children pleading for their lives, crawled through a shattered window and reached a classroom where a teacher was fighting the gunman. He said that teacher’s struggle gave him the chance to act.

That detail matters because the intervention was not a simple story of one person arriving alone. A teacher confronted the attacker first, and Bend’s police chief said she almost certainly prevented more bloodshed. Giamanco then faced the unbearable arithmetic of the moment: he stopped the gunman, but four people had already died.

His remorse is striking. He said he wanted to meet the victims’ families, cry with them and hold them, while apologising for not saving their children. The statement does not lessen what he did; it shows the emotional cost of surviving a violent decision that had to be made in seconds.

Police are still investigating the attacker’s motive. Whether the account affects school policy or legal proceedings remains unclear, but it gives investigators, families and the wider community a detailed record of how the shooting unfolded inside the school.