Teacher’s tackle narrowed the killing

An Oregon teacher tried to wrestle a shotgun from a 16-year-old attacker inside a special educational needs classroom at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, police said, before an armed bystander entered the school and fatally shot the suspect.

What is confirmed is grim enough. Four people were killed in the attack: three children and teacher Meghan Lambert, 25. Police identified one of the children as five-year-old Rhoam Summer. The families of the other two children, aged eight and 11, had not agreed to public identification. Two more people were injured: a 54-year-old teacher and a seven-year-old student, who police said was in serious but stable condition.

The sequence matters because it shows where the killing was interrupted, and by whom. Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said the teacher in the classroom threw her mobile phone before tackling the teenager and trying to take the gun from him on the floor. He said she was not physically injured and “almost certainly” helped prevent further bloodshed. Police said the bystander, a father of two girls at the school, then fired at the suspect multiple times and killed him.

Authorities have not officially named the father. BBC reported that the family of 36-year-old Kaylub Giamanco identified him to US media. Police, more cautiously, confirmed only that the man had a legally concealed .40 calibre pistol in his vehicle and ran inside after seeing gunfire in the school car park and the attacker shooting through a window to get in.

Police identified the suspect as Griffin J John II, 16, a former student at the school who had been in special educational needs education there. They said he fired as many as 15 rounds in the class and was carrying about 44 additional shotgun rounds when he was stopped.

Several important questions remain open. Police said they were still investigating how the suspect acquired the gun, his exact movements before the attack and his motive. A search warrant was executed at his home and the search was continuing.

That leaves a familiar split between what public officials can praise and what they cannot yet explain. They can account for the intervention that halted the attack. They cannot yet account for how a former pupil reached a primary school classroom with a shotgun and enough ammunition to kill more children.