Bend, Oregon, shooting updates: Police investigate motive; father and teacher hailed for heroism

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Fourth-grader recounts hearing gunshots ring during Oregon school shooting

0:51 • Source: CNN

Fourth-grader recounts hearing gunshots ring during Oregon school shooting

0:51

When fourth-grade student Kalani Journeigh heard what she described as a “boom” while at school Thursday, she did not think much of it until she saw Silver Rail Elementary’s vice principal running down a hallway and screaming.

“She started to scream, ‘Go in your classroom ’… ‘Just go hide,’” she told Reuters news agency. “I don’t know what she really said, but she said, ‘Just go’. And she was screaming … we thought she was kind of joking.”

Journeigh said she and some of her classmates were then told to hide in an unfamiliar room for about 30 minutes, as gunshots rang in the background.

When asked what was going through her head at the time, Journeigh, who is 9, said: “Kind of like that we might die.”

“All of our hearts were beating. My friend… crying. He couldn’t stop. He like, he couldn’t really breathe because he was so scared, and I couldn’t breathe,” she said.

Hundreds of people on Friday night gathered for a vigil in downtown Bend to mourn the victims of the Silver Rail Elementary School shooting, with residents lighting candles and observing moments of silence.

Attendees who spoke with CNN affiliate KPTV described experiencing “shock” and “disbelief” over the tragedy.

“I don’t think I’ve quite processed it all. It’s been a lot the last few years,” Bend resident Renee Leblanc said.

“I think whenever this happens, we ask why and what we are going to do to change this. Not only coming together as a community, but also with policy change and more gun laws, to not get guns into the wrong hands,” she added.

Izzy Coen, who works at Silver Rail’s after-school program, told KPTV that if she had arrived at the school 30 minutes earlier, she would’ve encountered the shooting.

“I’m just honestly in disbelief … I’ve known and loved these kids for two years now. I just can’t imagine how they were feeling in those moments,” she said.

“I love them with all my heart. I go into protective mode. I wish I could see them and have done more to help.”

A woman who survived a school shooting in California as a high school freshman in 2001 found herself reliving that trauma on Thursday as she comforted her two sons after they survived the shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School.

“I was just in shock. I was like, how can this happen? How can lightning strike twice?” Michelle, who is withholding her last name for privacy, told CNN. “How can I go through this and then my children go through this?”

Michelle’s fifth-grade son called her from his Apple Watch at 1 p.m. local time on Thursday and said, “Mom, there’s a shooter.”

She could immediately tell by his tone of voice that something was very wrong. Shortly after, he texted, “shooter at school.”

“Everything is going to be okay. This happened to me too, and I am okay,” she replied to her son via text. She hadn’t shared her own experience with him until then.

Michelle said she never felt safe in her own high school, Granite Hills High, or even in public again after her ordeal in 2001. She added she developed panic attacks and always searched for the nearest exit in public spaces.

Even before Thursday’s incident, she said she would often feel anxious when dropping her sons off at school.

“Every single time I dropped them off, and I would see them walk in the front doors, I would get a pit in my stomach thinking, ‘I hope I see him again,’” she said through tears. “It’s probably because of the trauma I went through.”

Students and staff members at Silver Rail Elementary School were reportedly set to have picture day in the scenic city of Bend, Oregon, on Thursday, when the driver of a Toyota pickup truck saw someone approach the school fence.

The witness then saw the individual cross the street, throw his weapon over the fence and climb it to enter the school, said Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz at a news conference today. The driver of the truck then “verbally confronted” the suspect, who fired at the pickup at least three times before the driver drove off and called 911 at 12:59 p.m., Krantz said.

The driver reported being shot at multiple times by a suspect with a long gun, Krantz said. Moments later, dozens of 911 calls said a shooter had entered the building of the school.

Law enforcement officers responding to the scene then directed the school to go into lockdown at 1:01 p.m., a minute before the first officers arrived, Krantz said.

After forcing entry into the school by firing multiple rounds into the glass panes of an external set of double doors, the shooter turned left and went directly into a special needs classroom where he fired up to 15 rounds, police said.

During the shooting, one teacher — who was not injured — took “heroic action” to try to stop the gunman, throwing her cellphone at the shooter and tackling him in an attempt to get the gun away from him, the police chief said.

A bystander “heard shooting and saw a teacher involved in a physical altercation with the suspect” and pursued him through the “forced open” school doors, Krantz said. The bystander, praised by officials for his heroism, engaged the shooter in gunfire and killed him, police said.

Three minutes after the first 911 call was made, police officers arrived and entered the building, confirming the suspect was dead.

Officers and medics on scene attempted life-saving care on one boy at the scene, police said. Two other children, both boys, and a teacher were already dead when officers arrived, police said.

Three children, aged 5, 8 and 11, and one teacher were killed, police said. A 7-year-old child and another teacher were also injured and transferred to a hospital, according to officials. All of the victims were shot inside the same classroom, police said.

The bystander was identified by his family as Kaylub Giamanco, a 36-year-old father of two students at the school, who struck the suspect multiple times and killed him with a 40-caliber pistol “legally secured in his vehicle,” Krantz said.

After authorities arrived on scene, they found the shooter had approximately 44 remaining rounds of 12-gauge ammunition on him or in his backpack, Krantz said. The suspect used a Maverick 88 pump-action 12-gauge shotgun in the attack, he said.

The shooter was identified by police on Thursday as 16-year-old Griffin J. John II, who was a special needs student at the school.

The prevalence of school shootings in America should prompt a conversation about “responsible gun ownership,” Democratic Rep. Janelle Bynum of Oregon said.

It comes after three children and one teacher were killed after a gunman opened fire in a special needs classroom in Bend. Bynum, who represents Bend, said the community “feels very heavy” in the wake of the tragedy, but it “also feels very preventable.”

The lawmaker said Americans need to rethink who can have a gun and how to intervene when there is an indication the gun is “in the hands of the wrong people” or there is a mental health concern. Police said a potential motive, including any warning signs, is under investigation.

“The laws don’t go far enough, fast enough for us to be able to intervene,” Bynum said.

In this case there was also a law-abiding gun owner who stopped the attack. A father saw the gunman and followed him into the school, fatally shooting him, authorities said. Bynum praised the man’s courage but said the burden should not be on community members to keep kids safe.

“We have to stop allowing our children to be shredded in schools, grocery stores, parks, churches. We have to stop this violence,” she said.

Megan Lambert, a 25-year-old teacher who was killed in the Silver Rail Elementary School shooting yesterday, “loved those children” and being an educator, her family said in a statement.

“Her goal was to be an educator and teach in the school district she loved growing up in,” the family said in a statement read at a news conference today.

The family described her as a “compassionate” person with a “huge heart” who “always fought for the underdog and those with special needs.”

Lambert was an Oregon native who grew up in Bend, graduated from Mountain View High School in 2019 and from Boise State in 2023, her family said. She also traveled to Barcelona, Spain, for an English teacher training school. She was a substitute teacher at Silver Rail before becoming a full-time teacher there.

“She loved Silver Rail; this was her dream job,” the family said.

Lambert was passionate about sports and had been a volleyball coach, her family said. She turned down pay her first season as a coach to help families who couldn’t afford to participate.

Lambert’s family says she was “funny and opinionated, and she lit up the room.”

The teenager who opened fire at Silver Rail Elementary School on Thursday, killing three students and a teacher inside a single classroom, has been identified as Griffin J. John II, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz announced at a news conference Friday.

The shooter used a Maverick 88 pump-action 12-gauge shotgun in the attack, Krantz said. The gun had been purchased by his mother, a senior law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told CNN earlier Friday.

He had about 44 remaining rounds of 12-gage ammunition, Krantz said.

The shooter had approached the campus, dropped the shotgun over a fence, then climbed over and forced his way into the building, opening fire inside the classroom, according to Krantz.

The shooter’s mother spoke to CNN off camera from her balcony, but would not comment on how her son got access to the weapon. Investigators say that is still under investigation.

“I miss my boy. I’m so sorry,” the woman said as she cried and smoked a cigarette.

And in a message to the families of those killed, she said, “I’m so sorry, I wish I could have done something. I’m sorry for their loss.”

The shooter’s parents were interviewed on Thursday and were cooperative with investigators, the official told CNN earlier Friday. The teen had attended the elementary school, though no clear motive for the shooting has been uncovered, authorities said Friday.

The shooter was previously a special needs student at the school and the shooting occurred in the special needs classroom, Bend-La Pine Schools Superintendent Steven Cook said. During the pandemic, his mother spoke with CNN affiliate KTVZ about how she hopes the in-person classes for special needs kids will resume. The program is described as being for kids with “intensive behavioral and social skills challenges.”

CNN has reached out to the program for comment.

A search warrant was executed on the shooter’s home Thursday, with investigators recovering computers and other electronic devices. Additional warrants have been obtained to retrieve data from the devices, according to the source.

CNN’s Nick Watt and Norma Galeana contributed reporting.