Father who killed Oregon school shooter speaks out for first time: ‘I have to go in’

Read the original at The Guardian ↗
Cite

Anguiano, D. (2026, October 23). Father who killed Oregon school shooter speaks out for first time: ‘I have to go in’. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/23/father-killed-oregon-shooter-speaks-out

Dated from the outlet's own feed. Check the original for its byline.

The Guardian · collected 2026-10-23 · by Dani Anguiano

Quick Summary

Kaylub Giamanco, a 36-year-old Oregon father, spoke for the first time about fatally shooting Griffin J John II, a 16-year-old former student who attacked Silver Rail Elementary School on October 15, killing one teacher and three children. During an interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting, Giamanco described his harrowing actions that day, including crawling through broken windows to confront the shooter in a classroom. He expressed remorse for not being able to save all the victims and emphasized the need for better school safety measures.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-10-23, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

AI analysis runs on qwen2.5:14b, locally

Story summary

On October 15, 2026, an active shooter report at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, prompted a large police response. The Bend Police Department directed families to Journey Church, near the school, as a reunification site. Onsite paramedics set up a staging area outside the school.

Kaylub Giamanco, a 36-year-old father of two whose daughters attend Silver Rail, intervened when he saw a gunman entering the school grounds. He fatally shot Griffin J John II, a 16-year-old former student who had killed teacher Megan Lambert and three children, including five-year-old Rhoam Summer.

Giamanco spoke to Oregon Public Broadcasting on October 23, describing his actions that day as necessary to stop further bloodshed. The school superintendent termed the incident a "senseless tragedy."

Written for “Oregon Elementary School Shooting” on 2026-10-24, grounded in this article and the 116 other(s) covering the same event.

Story

📰 Oregon Elementary School Shooting
Crime & Law · 117 article(s) covering the same event. Compare every outlet's account →

Compared with similar articles

This article reads unscored and hedges 6% of its claims. Each row says how that neighbour differs.
ABC News (US) · 0.89 cosine similarity
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 9% hedged 2 of 22 📰 publisher trust 70
“Both articles describe Kaylub Giamanco speaking about the same incident where he stopped a school shooter at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon.”
BBC News · 0.91 cosine similarity
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 4% hedged 2 of 46 📰 publisher trust 69
“Both articles describe the same specific incident where Kaylub Giamanco killed the school shooter at Silver Rail Elementary School in Oregon.”
New York Post · 0.89 cosine similarity
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 20% hedged 3 of 15 📰 publisher trust 66
“Both articles describe the exact same incident involving Kaylub Giamanco stopping a school shooter at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon.”
Reason
⚖️ Leans right 🔴 8% hedged 3 of 40 📰 publisher trust 67
“Both articles describe the same incident where Kaylub Giamanco intervened at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon to stop a school shooter.”
CBS News
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 0% hedged 0 of 2 📰 publisher trust 66
“Both articles describe Kaylub Giamanco's actions during the Oregon elementary school shooting incident on the same day in Bend, involving the same shooter and victims.”
CBS News · 0.89 cosine similarity
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 2% hedged 1 of 46 📰 publisher trust 66
“Both articles describe Kaylub Giamanco speaking about the incident where he fatally shot the school shooter at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon.”
Reason
⚖️ Leans strongly right 🔴 15% hedged 7 of 47 📰 publisher trust 67
“Both articles describe the same specific incident involving Kaylub Giamanco stopping a school shooting at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon.”
New York Post
⚖️ Leans left 🔴 35% hedged 6 of 17 📰 publisher trust 66
“The articles describe different incidents: one focuses on Griffin John's background, while the other reports on Kaylub Giamanco stopping a school shooting and killing the shooter.”
New York Post
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 26% hedged 5 of 19 📰 publisher trust 66
“The articles describe different events: one is about Edward Villa allegedly committing triple-homicide in a suburban home, while the other is about Kaylub Giamanco stopping a school shooting at Silver Rail elementary.”
New York Post
⚖️ Leans left 🔴 17% hedged 1 of 6 📰 publisher trust 66
“While both articles describe incidents related to the Oregon school shooting, they focus on different aspects: Article A discusses the shooter's background and potential extremist affiliations, while Article B focuses on the father who intervened and stopped the shooter.”
How this article was measured signals, leaning charts, publisher record, byline, topics and claims

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted
18
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
6%
1 of 18 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
not political
takes no side on a contested political question
Publisher signals
69/100
The Guardian's corrections and hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
117
Crime & Law
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
Analyzed 2026-10-23 · how these are computed

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability
Source leaning vs. consistency

Publisher

The Guardian · 1611 article(s) · 4 correction(s) detected
Running correction rate · 4 correction(s)

Who wrote this

Dani Anguiano
10 article(s) here · 1 carrying a prediction
🔮 He told OPB that he lies awake at night thinking of what he saw that day and the teenage perpetrator, and wonders if he could have done more.
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🔮 “You could visibly see there was something really wrong,” Mary Austin told Fox 5.
🔮 “We will not stop.
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Also by Dani Anguiano
Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.
All 10 articles by Dani Anguiano →

Topics

Bend OPB Oregon Oregon Public Broadcasting Silver Rail

Subjects

Giamanco PERSON · 6× Griffin PERSON · 3× OPB ORG · 3× Oregon GPE · 2× Bend GPE · 1× Griffin J John II PERSON · 1× Kaylub Giamanco PERSON · 1× Megan Lambert PERSON · 1× Rhoam Summer PERSON · 1× Silver Rail ORG · 1×

Narrative

He fatally shot Griffin J John II, a 16-year-old former student at the school, who broke in and shot six people, killing Megan Lambert, a 25-year-old teacher, and three children, including five-year-old Rhoam Summer.
framing: assertive · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-10-23
🔮 He told OPB that he lies awake at night thinking of what he saw that day and the teenage perpetrator, and wonders if he could have done more.

Claims (18 extracted, 1 hedged)

The Oregon father hailed as a hero for stopping a school shooting last week spoke for the first time about the incident, describing his experience and how he told a 911 operator: “I have to go in. asserted
I → hail → operator
People are going to die.” asserted
People → go → ?
Kaylub Giamanco, a 36-year-old carpenter, has received national attention and praise for stopping the bloodshed at Silver Rail elementary in Bend, Oregon, where his children attend school. asserted
children → receive → school
He fatally shot Griffin J John II, a 16-year-old former student at the school, who broke in and shot six people, killing Megan Lambert, a 25-year-old teacher, and three children, including five-year-old Rhoam Summer. asserted
who → shoot → Summer
In an interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), his first since the 15 October shooting, he recounted that day. asserted
he → recount → day
He told reporters that he was only in the area because he had decided to return home and eat lunch with his wife rather than the meal he brought to work that day. asserted
he → tell → work
For a moment, Giamanco, who lives near the school, thought it was a prank when he saw a man in black armed with a gun headed toward Silver Rail, he said. asserted
he → live → Rail
Then he saw the man fire the gun and climb over a school fence. asserted
man → see → fence
Giamanco pulled out a .40 caliber handgun from his center console and headed into the school parking lot, calling 911, before himself hopping over a fence to pursue the shooter. asserted
himself → pull → shooter
He quietly followed Griffin without the teenager seeing him, at one point crawling on his hands and knees when he heard “children pleading for their lives”. asserted
children → follow → lives
“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. asserted
he → start → OPB
Giamanco crawled through a broken window and toward the special education class Griffin had entered, where a teacher was fighting with the shooter. asserted
teacher → crawl → shooter
He came into the classroom and fired his gun. asserted
He → come → gun
Griffin fell and was reaching for his weapon before Giamanco, who said he “was afraid of him shooting anybody else”, shot him two more times. asserted
him → fall → times
He told OPB that he lies awake at night thinking of what he saw that day and the teenage perpetrator, and wonders if he could have done more. uncertain
he → tell → more
“I want to apologize for not saving their babies,” Giamanco told the outlet. asserted
Giamanco → want → outlet
“The gratitude for saving people’s children is awesome, but there were ones that I didn’t save.” asserted
I → save → that
Giamanco said he wants to see safer schools with school resource officers at every site, and that he would like to raise funding to support school safety efforts. asserted
he → say → efforts
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