Hero Who Stopped Oregon School Shooting Praises Teacher Who Fought Back

The armed citizen who reportedly neutralized a school shooter in Bend, Oregon on Thursday praised a teacher who fought the shooter during an interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting posted Friday.

The alleged gunman killed three children and a teacher with a shotgun and wounded two others during the attack at Silver Rail Elementary School. Local resident Kaylub Giamanco took action and described his reaction when he saw the suspected school shooter enter the building during the interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB).

“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,’” Giamanco told OPB, describing how he made his way into the school and evaded being detected by the shooter until, seeing a teacher struggle with the suspect, he swung a door open.

Giamanco opened fire, and hit the gunman, — allowing the teacher to get away — before firing two more shots that ended the attack.

“The teacher that was, you know, wrestling with the gun, with the gunman. I just, I want to recognize her: she gave me the opportunity to make my shot without losing my life,” Giamanco said. “I saw a clear shot to where I did not have to take her life. Without her and that little spur-of-the-moment delay, I very much feel like I would have been facing the shooter head-on and we could have both died, or I could have died, and I felt like I was the last line of defense between me and the rest of the children in the school.”

“I don’t know her name. I would love to know her name. I would love to give her a hug because that’s a real true hero,” Giamanco said. “To not have a weapon and to put yourself in between your babies and a firearm, you know, it’s a lot.”

Giamanco also expressed a desire to meet the families of children who perished in the attack.

“I really did want to speak with the families and the victims and just cry with them and hold them. I want to apologize for not saving their babies,” he told OPB.

“That’s probably the biggest thing for me right now because the gratitude for saving people’s children is awesome, but there was [sic] the ones that I didn’t save, and that’s probably the hardest thing for me right now,” Giamanco continued. “And so, yeah, there’s a little bit of, like, fear of seeing these families because I do feel like I failed them.”