Students in this Oregon community won’t be returning to classes on Monday as they continue to mourn three classmates and a teacher killed in the United States’ latest school shooting, the motive of which is still unknown.
Officials in Bend, Oregon, are investigating what led a 16-year-old former student of Silver Rail Elementary School to return to the school and open fire inside a special needs classroom on Thursday. Teacher Megan Lambert was killed along with students 5-year-old Rhoam Summer and two others, aged 8 and 11, police said.
“We hold each of them and their families and their loved ones close in our hearts as we mourn together as one community,” Bend-La Pine Superintendent Steve Cook said in a video posted Sunday. “Our responsibilities to care for one another will continue well beyond these first days.”
The shooting stopped when another teacher intervened to tackle the suspect before a good Samaritan — who saw the gunman enter the school and trailed him — fatally shot him, police said.
Here’s what we know about the Silver Rail Elementary shooting, the 36th in the United States this year on K-12 school grounds, according to CNN’s analysis of multiple databases, including the Gun Violence Archive.
Where the investigation stands
Law enforcement officials are still looking to understand why the gunman, identified as Griffin J. John II, forced his way into his former elementary school, opening fire into the mixed-age special needs classroom. He previously attended special needs classes at Silver Rail Elementary, officials said, but they couldn’t confirm whether he had been a student in that specific classroom.
Investigators on Thursday interviewed the shooter’s parents, who were cooperative with officials, a senior law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told CNN on Friday. Officials also searched the shooter’s home, obtaining computers and other electronics, the source said. Local investigators and the FBI will work to gain access to the devices to see if there’s a trail that leads to the shooting.
The shooter used a Maverick 88 pump-action 12-gauge shotgun, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said Friday. He had about 44 remaining rounds of ammunition, Krantz added.
The gun was purchased by his mother, a senior law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told CNN on Friday.
Oregon law doesn’t allow minors under age 18 to legally purchase a shotgun, but they may legally possess one if a parent or guardian, or a person with the parent or guardian’s consent, transfers the firearm to them. They can lawfully temporarily possess it for hunting, target practice or shooting sports, according to the state statute.
The gunman was an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, the group confirmed on Sunday.
“The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians is heartbroken by the tragic loss of life at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend,” CEO Kurtis Barker said in a statement provided to CNN. “We extend our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones and hold in our thoughts those who were injured, the students and staff who experienced this unimaginable tragedy, and the entire Bend community as they grieve.”
The students killed include Rhoam Summer, 5, and two others, who were 8 and 11 years old. The families of the two other children requested that police not publicly identify them, the Bend Police Department said.
Rhoam’s father, Kelik Summer, shared a statement in a Facebook community group after his son’s death.
“Today has been the worst day of my life. My son Rhoam was killed in a school shooting,” Summer wrote late Thursday. “We are broken and lost, but are surrounded by friends and family who are keeping us safe.”
Megan Lambert, a 25-year-old special education teacher, was also fatally shot. Her family said in a statement shared by police that working at Silver Rail was her “dream job.”
A native central Oregonian, Lambert grew up in Bend and graduated from nearby Mountain View High School in 2019. She went on to graduate in 2023 from Boise State University, in Idaho, her family statement said.
“Megan was compassionate and had a huge heart,” her family statement said. “She always fought for the underdog and those with special needs. She was an incredible sister, daughter, niece, and granddaughter. Her friends became her family. She was funny and opinionated, and she lit up the room.”
Becky Drury, a 54-year-old inclusion educational assistant from Bend, and Saylor Graham, 7, were injured in the shooting and taken to local hospitals.
Drury had serious but not life-threatening injuries. Her husband, Will Drury, said she has needed surgeries for wounds to her left arm and right hand, according to a post reshared by Drury’s mother-in-law on Facebook.
“The kindness and concern shown to our family and everyone affected mean more than we can express. We live in a truly special community,” Will Drury said in a separate statement. “Right now, our focus is on my wife, Becky, and her recovery.”
Saylor, who was identified in two verified GoFundMe campaigns, received lifesaving care at the scene and was taken to Oregon Health & Science University, where she was listed in serious but stable condition, Bend Police said Friday.
“Saylor is the definition of light and joy,” Matt Sampson, executive director of the Sparrow Clubs, a Bend-based nonprofit that provides financial and emotional support to children with medical needs and their families, told CNN, adding he had known Saylor for the past few years.
“Her life story of determination, resilience and strength has inspired countless students and others in her community, including those of us at Sparrow Clubs,” he said.
When the gunman was seen jumping over a fence to enter the school, a driver in a red Toyota pickup confronted him, police said. The gunman shot at the truck, hitting it at least three times, officials said. The driver then went down the street and called 911 just before 1 p.m.
In the span of about three minutes, the gunman forced his way through double doors, firing multiple rounds into glass panes in the doors to enter, police said. He then went directly to the special needs classroom, immediately to the left of the entrance, and fired as many as 15 rounds, police said.
A second driver, identified by family as 36-year-old Kaylub Giamanco, was on his lunch break when he saw the encounter between the shooter and the pickup driver, according to his mother and police. Giamanco, a father of two children at the school who had a legally secured 40-caliber pistol with him, drove into the school parking lot and followed the shooter into the school, police said. He made his way through a window the gunman shot out, his mother, Kenda Freeman, told CNN affiliate KOVR/KMAX.
Inside the school, a teacher threw her cellphone at the shooter and tackled him to get the shotgun away, Krantz said.
Giamanco heard gunfire and saw the teacher physically struggling with the gunman, and he then fired at the suspect multiple times, killing him, police said.
Giamanco, a contractor with experience handling guns, called his mom immediately after the shooting, she said.
“He said, ‘Mom, I just shot and killed somebody,’” Freeman said.
“A man went into my daughters’ school and shot kids,” Giamanco said, according to his mom.
“He said, ‘I looked at him point blank, and I shot and killed him, mom,’” Freeman said.
Both of Giamanco’s children survived, but Freeman said her son is traumatized.
“I told him he saved a lot of lives,” Freeman said. “’He said, ‘Mom, I couldn’t save them all.’”
President Donald Trump called Giamanco “a great hero” who “took care of business.” Lambert’s family said they are grateful for the father, calling him a “hero,” for putting himself at risk for others.
It’s unclear how the shooter was able to bypass the school’s security measures, according to Steven Cook, superintendent of Bend-La Pine Schools, the school district that includes Silver Rail Elementary.
The school district had been outfitted with secure entry vestibules, photo ID checks and visitor screenings, indoor and outdoor security cameras and upgraded locks on classroom doors that can be secured from the inside, the district said. Some of those measures, including the locking system, were upgraded in 2022.
Silver Rail had also practiced a lockdown drill about two weeks before, one of two drills every school in the district practices annually, Cook said Friday. During the recent drill, he said four school resource officers (SRO) were present.
When the shooting happened, the assigned SRO wasn’t at the school but at a nearby school. Sheila Miller, a spokesperson for the Bend Police Department, said the SRO oversees six or seven schools.
‘They were so afraid’: Teacher recalls hiding students during Oregon school shooting
Fifth-grade teacher Kathy Sheil Smith describes quietly sheltering her terrified students after seeing a gunman enter Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon. The attack killed three children and a teacher and critically injured two others before a community member pursued and fatally shot the 16-year-old gunman, police said.
The school district will be reviewing its emergency response procedures, safety plans and other factors related to the shooting, Cook said.
The number of school shootings in the country should spur conversations about “responsible gun ownership,” US Rep. Janelle Bynum, an Oregon Democrat who represents Bend, told CNN on Friday.
“This school, we had invested money in to make sure that it was locked,” she said. “They did all of their drills as expected — everything that we’ve said that will protect kids up to now, and yet it didn’t work.”
Silver Rail Elementary is closed until further notice, the district said in an update.
Students elsewhere in the district are set to return to classes Wednesday on an early-release schedule.
In the aftermath of the shooting, hundreds of people have shown up for crisis counseling offered by the district and local health systems, Cook said.
Dr. Logan Clausen, a Bend pediatrician, told CNN her office’s parking lot was filled with loved ones waiting for news of loved ones on the day of the shooting. Her clinic, Central Oregon Pediatric Associates, is now helping parents talk to their children about what they experienced or what they’re observing in their community.
Silence for children can be scary, so parents should initiate conversation, she said. This can include talking about what they know, what they’re feeling, and gently correct inaccurate information, she said.
“You can talk about what schools are doing, you can talk about what police are doing, you can talk about action that they can do to feel safer,” she said.
Edna, a mother with two children at Silver Rail, said she was picking up her son for a doctor’s appointment when the shooting started. Days after, Edna, who asked that her last name not be used, was going to take her son to the museum, but he was scared if a shooting could happen there, too, she told CNN’s Nick Watt on Saturday.
“How do I tell him that, like I mean, I don’t even know,” she said. “I don’t even know if it’s going to happen again.”
While students at other schools in the district will soon return to classes, Silver Rail stands empty. Near yellow police tape strewn around the shuttered campus, mourners have made a makeshift memorial amassed with flower bouquets, toys and four white wooden crosses.
