A father who fatally shot a school gunman has apologised to the parents of children he could not save. Kaylub Giamanco, 36, said he was the 'last line of defence' at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon, and regretted not arriving sooner to prevent more deaths.
"I want to apologise for not saving their babies, that's probably the biggest thing for me right now," Giamanco said. "The gratitude for saving people's children is awesome. But there were ones that I didn't save."
Three Children and Teacher Killed
Three youngsters - aged 5, 8 and 11 - and a teacher lost their lives at the school last week when a former student, 16-year-old Griffin J. John II, shot his way through secured doors with a shotgun and targeted a special needs classroom. Another pupil was left in a critical condition, while another teacher sustained injuries and was transported to hospital.
Giamanco had taken his daughters to the school that morning before departing for work as normal. Several hours later, the carpenter discovered himself driving past the school again while returning home for lunch - it was at that moment he noticed an individual clad in black and wielding a long firearm.
Father's Quick Response
The gunman discharged rounds at a pickup truck and at a person cutting the school's grass, before climbing a fence and moving towards the school premises. Giamanco remembered that "panic fled into my brain." He grabbed a 40-calibre handgun from his truck's centre console and chased the gunman while simultaneously dialling 911. After requesting emergency help from the operator, he terminated the call.
"I said 'I'm sorry I have to go in. People are going to die,'" Giamanco said. As he approached the building, he dropped to his stomach and crawled across the ground on his elbows. "That's when I started hearing children pleading for their lives," he said. "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.'"
Confrontation and Aftermath
Giamanco entered the school through a smashed window. Looking into an adjoining classroom, he observed a teacher locked in combat with the shooter. They were both side-on to him, offering a clear shot. "I felt like I was the last line of defense between him and the rest of the children," Giamanco said. He threw the door open, walked into the room and fired his weapon.
Police confirm another teacher hurled her phone at the attacker and grappled with him before Giamanco fatally shot him. Both the gunman and the teacher fell to the floor. The teacher escaped the room as the shooter reached for his shotgun. "He was scrambling for his weapon," Giamanco said. "I looked at him and I shot him two more times to make sure that he couldn't move, because I was afraid of him shooting anybody else."
Police confirmed that Giamanco was lawfully carrying his firearm in his vehicle, and have acknowledged both him and the unarmed teacher who challenged the gunman with preventing countless casualties. The day following the shooting, President Donald Trump hailed Giamanco as a "great hero" who "took care of business."
A second teacher who was in the classroom, Becky Drury, disclosed in a statement on Wednesday that she remained motionless on the floor feigning death, having been hit at point-blank range by a shotgun blast that almost completely severed her left hand. The teacher who grappled with the shooter has not been publicly identified. Giamanco told the public broadcaster that she's "a real true hero" whose courage provided him with the chance to neutralise the attacker.
"I can't tell you what it feels like to take a life ... but I can tell you that I genuinely feel like I was supposed to be there," Giamanco said. "If I wasn't there, I just don't know what would have happened."
