Kaylub Giamanco has broken his silence about the moment he confronted a teenage gunman at his daughters’ Oregon elementary school.
Giamanco, 36, a carpenter and father of two girls who attend Silver Rail Elementary School, was driving home for lunch with his wife last Thursday when he spotted 16-year-old Griffin John firing a shotgun at a red pickup truck, then turning the weapon on a woman mowing the school’s lawn. The teen then hopped a fence and entered the building to begin his deadly rampage.
“That’s when panic fled into my brain, and that’s when I opened my center console,” Giamanco told Oregon Public Broadcasting in a sit-down interview, describing the instant he reached for his.40 caliber handgun.
The father had been heading home to eat leftovers during his lunch break when the violence erupted. He told his Siri to call 911 but did not remain on the line to answer the dispatcher’s questions, instead focusing on reaching the children inside.
Giamanco rushed from a wallball court toward the building, moving on his hands and knees as chaos unfolded around him. John fatally shot three children and a teacher during the assault, and also critically wounded a 7-year-old girl in a wheelchair and another teacher.
“I just was in full panic, like, ‘No, there’s children, there’s babies in there,'” Giamanco said of his mindset as he closed in on the shooter.
The father continued crawling through the danger as the sounds of the massacre grew clearer. “That’s when I started hearing children pleading for their lives and then I started hearing gunfire and 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 recalled to the outlet.
Giamanco’s intervention ended the attack, though the source material does not detail the precise moment of the fatal confrontation. The death toll from John’s rampage stands at four killed, with two others critically injured among the school’s students and staff.
The massacre at Silver Rail Elementary has left the Bend, Oregon community reeling and renewed national debate over school security and armed response to active shooter situations. Giamanco’s account offers a rare firsthand perspective from a civilian who chose to engage a gunman during an ongoing attack.
The father of two has not publicly addressed whether he will face any legal review for his actions, and law enforcement officials have not indicated whether his use of deadly force is under investigation. Oregon law generally permits the use of force in defense of oneself or others when facing imminent threat of death or serious injury.
Giamanco’s daughters were inside the school during the shooting, adding a deeply personal dimension to his split-second decision to arm himself and advance toward the gunfire rather than flee.
The teen shooter, Griffin John, 16, has not been identified with any prior connection to the school or its students in available reporting. His motive remains under investigation by local authorities.
