On October 15, 2026, a school shooting occurred at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, United States. The perpetrator, 16-year-old Griffin J. John II, made entry into the school by jumping over a school fence before shooting through glass panels of a locked door with a pump-action shotgun. John then entered a special education classroom, where four adults and five children were inside at the time, and fatally shot three children and a teacher and injured another student and a teaching assistant. Cassidy Schutz, a teacher in the classroom, threw her mobile phone at the gunman and tackled John. Kaylub Giamanco, a civilian who had followed John into the school, then fatally shot the gunman.
Background
Silver Rail Elementary is a two-story school located in the southeast part of the city, completed in 2015. The school, as well as middle and high schools within the Bend-La Pine School District, have "secure vestibules" in each of the buildings where visitors must enter, then check in with the office staff and sign in via an electronic system that verifies the visitor has passed a background check before being buzzed into the building. All schools also have security cameras installed both inside and outside of all buildings and are equipped with armed school resource officers. Following the Uvalde school shooting in 2022, voters approved new door-locking hardware for the classrooms at Silver Rail, allowing for the doors to be locked by flipping a switch.
The day of the shooting was picture day at Silver Rail Elementary School.
Shooting
At 12:59 p.m., the Bend Police Department first received an emergency call from a pickup truck driver in a red Toyota Tacoma who said he confronted a gunman—later identified as Griffin J. John II—in the parking lot of the school before being fired at numerous times with a weapon later identified as a 12-gauge Maverick 88 pump-action shotgun. The driver's Tacoma was struck by gunfire at least six times. John then threw the shotgun over the school fence, before jumping over and moving towards the school.
At 1:00 p.m., Deschutes County dispatchers received multiple emergency calls reporting that a person had entered the school and begun shooting. John forced entry by shooting at the glass panels on the locked doors and targeted the first classroom to the left of those doors, which was a special education classroom. Four adults and five children were in the classroom at the time. Becky Drury, a teaching assistant, said she ran out of the special education classroom to see what was happening, but rushed back to the classroom after spotting John. While she attempted to shut the door behind her, John shot her at close range. Drury said that she was unable to get up and defend herself or others after being shot, so she pretended to be dead. At one point during the shooting, teacher Cassidy Schutz tackled and threw her cell phone at John.
Police officers arrived at 1:02 p.m. Moments later, John was shot and killed inside a classroom by Kaylub Giamanco, a father of two students at the school. A concealed carry permit holder, Giamanco took a .40-caliber handgun legally stored in his vehicle, and followed John inside the school after seeing John shoot his way into the building. Giamanco had crawled towards the doors that John had shot out in order to prevent the gunman from seeing him, and then crawled through a broken panel of one of the doors. Giamanco then re-racked his pistol to make sure that it was ready to fire, and then spotted John struggling with Schutz inside the classroom through a window. Giamanco then opened the door and shot John once, and Schutz ran from the classroom. Giamanco saw John trying to retrieve his shotgun, so he shot him two more times, killing him. According to police, John fired as many as 15 rounds during the attack and had 44 additional rounds concealed in a backpack or on his person.
Victims
Five people were killed at the scene, including the shooter. The victims included three children, ages 5, 8, and 11, and one teacher, 25-year-old Megan Lambert. Saylor Graham, a 7-year-old student, and Becky Drury, a 54-year-old educational assistant, were hospitalized with critical injuries at St. Charles Medical Center. Graham was in stable but serious condition, and Drury had serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The father of the 5-year-old victim identified him as Rhoam Summer. Summer is the youngest person to be killed in a school shooting in the US since tracking began in the 1960s.
Drury had her left hand almost completely severed by the shot that struck her, and it also injured her right arm. In a statement on October 26, Graham's family said that she had been released from the intensive care unit. On October 27, Drury underwent a fourth surgery, with the goal of restoring her ability to use her left hand.
Defender
The armed civilian responsible for killing the perpetrator and ending the attack was identified as Kaylub Giamanco, originally of Placerville, California, a 36-year-old carpenter and a father of two students at Silver Rail Elementary. According to reports, Giamanco had previously gone through multiple "military shooting drills", accompanied by Iraq War veterans. Giamanco was driving back from his lunch break when the attack started; after spotting John, he parked his car near the school and called 9-1-1 but did not answer the dispatcher's questions, saying, "I'm sorry, I have to go in. People are going to die." Giamanco then headed to the building, gaining entry by crawling through the shattered glass panels. He shot John three times, killing him. Shortly afterward, Giamanco called his mother, telling her that he "just shot and killed somebody".
According to a childhood friend of Giamanco's, Giamanco had previously saved his brother's life by applying a tourniquet to his leg after a motorcycle accident. Giamanco's brother told the New York Post that Giamanco was not comfortable with being described as a hero. In an interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting, Giamanco said that he knew he was being called a hero, and that "it's getting easier each day to think of himself that way".
Perpetrator
The perpetrator was identified the following day as 16‑year‑old Bend resident Griffin J. John II (August 20, 2010 – October 15, 2026), a member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and a former special education student of the school with no known previous criminal history. John was born in Newport, and four years after his birth, his parents divorced, with his mother retaining custody of him. At the time of the shooting, John lived with his mother in an apartment several blocks away from Silver Rail. According to The Astorian, his father was homeless and living in the woods 250 miles (400 km) away. After being interviewed, John's father reported that he had not been in contact with his son in a year. According to a homeless advocate in the area, John's father had a history of violence, intimidation, drug activity, and sexual abuse. The death of John was reported to him two days after the shooting.
On September 29, 2020, when John was 10 years old, his mother had an interview on KTVZ about his participation in the school district's special education program as students came back to in-person classes and how her son had struggled to learn from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
John attended Elk Meadow Elementary School in kindergarten and then transferred to Silver Rail. After elementary school, he attended Pilot Butte Middle School and took his last special education classes in eighth grade. John had lengthy absences from school beginning in the fourth grade up until his sophomore year of high school. John dropped out of school in November 2025 at Bend Tech Academy.
Five days after the shooting, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said they had reason to believe that John may have developed an obsession with Nazism and possibly interacted with extremist groups such as 764.
Investigation and legal proceedings
The FBI's Portland field office is aiding in the investigation. Bend police chief Mike Krantz said that John's motive for carrying out the shooting may never be uncovered, but that the investigation was still ongoing. Krantz also said that the weapon used by John in the attack was a legally purchased Maverick 88 pump-action 12-gauge shotgun, and that John used three different types of ammunition during the attack: birdshot, buckshot, and slugs. Investigators determined that the shotgun used in the attack was purchased by John's mother as a birthday gift on his 16th birthday. Oregon state law does not allow minors to purchase a shotgun, but it allows parents or guardians, or a person with their parent or guardian's consent, to transfer the firearm to them. However, minors can only have temporary possession of the weapon for hunting or sports shooting. Federal and local investigators interviewed John's parents and searched his home, seizing computers and other digital devices to gain access to them and determine if there is information on them regarding the attack.
The family of shooting victim Rhoam Summer hired three law firms, Dwyer Williams & Cherkoss, Simon Greenstone Panatier, and Worthington & Caron, to investigate the shooting and determine if there were "possible legal claims". One of the attorneys, Tim Williams, said in a statement that they would investigate "any systemic failures that may have allowed this tragedy to happen", through examining the efficacy of security, the origin of John's weapon, and how John gained access to the firearm and gained entry into the school.
Aftermath
A reunification site was established at Journey Church. Classes and school activities were canceled across the Bend-La Pine School District the following day. Events during the following weekend in Bend's park and recreation district were cancelled in reaction to the shooting. Students returned to classes in the Bend-La Pine School District on October 21. Additional police officers were stationed at schools in the district in the aftermath of the shooting throughout the first week of classes returning. Students at Silver Rail will not return until further notice, and mental health services were made available to returning students at other schools. Child care services through the Boys & Girls Club were made available to parents of Silver Rail students during the closure.
On October 22, the school district announced that it was launching a survey for parents, guardians, and staff to gauge public opinion about when and how best for Silver Rail students to return to classes. On October 27, the school district said that students would return to the school after 86% of those surveyed supported students returning to Silver Rail. The school district did not say when students would be able to return, but said that the school would remain closed at least through November 6 for repairs. On November 9, teachers and staff returned to Silver Rail, with students returning on November 12. The classroom where the shooting took place was covered with a printed out mural from a local artist.
Reactions
Political
Oregon governor Tina Kotek and Bend mayor Melanie Kebler spoke at a vigil at a local park hours after the shooting. Steven Cook, the superintendent of Bend-La Pine School District, also offered his condolences to the families and to everyone affected by the violence. Kotek later ordered all flags lowered to half-staff to honor the victims of the shooting. On October 26, Kotek issued an executive order to have the state's education and emergency management agencies to provide more assistance to the school district and also declared a state of emergency. In a press conference, Kotek said she had dispatched workers to from various state agencies to help the Bend-La Pine School District apply for federal grants, assist staff members in receiving paid leave benefits, and quickly process background checks for educators, substitute teachers, and crisis counselors. On November 6, Kotek said that she would ask the Oregon state legislature to approve $10 million in emergency funds to support the city of Bend.