THE DAILY BS: HOW MUCH CAN YOU HANDLE?
SPARE ME THE BS (I’ve got things to do).
- Kaylub Giamanco, the Oregon father who fatally shot an elementary school attacker, revealed that he believed he was going to die as he crawled toward children screaming inside their classroom.
- The 36-year-old carpenter told Oregon Public Broadcasting that he replays the October 15 massacre every night and desperately wishes he could have saved the three children and teacher who were killed.
- Giamanco says he wants to turn his sudden national attention into better school security, including stronger doors, improved locks and armed school resource officers.
LAY IT ON ME (I’ve got time).
America calls him a hero. Kaylub Giamanco keeps thinking about the children he couldn’t save.
For the first time since he confronted and killed the gunman who attacked Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, the 36-year-old father of two is telling his story.
And it is heartbreaking.
In an emotional interview published Friday by Oregon Public Broadcasting, Giamanco described crawling toward the sound of children screaming, believing those might be the final moments of his own life.
He also described what happened afterward, when his mother called him a hero. “I didn’t save everybody. I didn’t get them all.”
Those words are coming from a man police credit with preventing even more deaths during one of the most horrifying school attacks in Oregon history.
On October 15, three children, ages 5, 8 and 11, and a 25-year-old teacher were killed when a 16-year-old former student attacked a special education classroom with a shotgun. Another student and teacher were seriously wounded.
Giamanco’s two daughters, ages 5 and 10, attended that same school. He had dropped them off that morning, taking extra care with their clothes because it was school picture day. Everything about the morning had been ordinary.
And as Giamanco now explains, an almost unbelievable series of small decisions put him in exactly the right place when the shooting began.
He had packed lunch for work but decided instead to head home and eat leftover tacos with his wife.
He considered stopping to run errands but changed his mind.
At approximately 12:58 p.m., he turned onto a road near his daughters’ school.
That’s when he saw a person dressed in black carrying a long gun.
At first, Giamanco thought it might be some kind of prank.
Then the armed teenager fired at a pickup truck and toward a woman working on the school’s lawn.
The shooter threw his weapon over the school fence and climbed after it.
Giamanco knew immediately where he was going.
He opened his truck’s center console and grabbed a .40-caliber handgun that he said had been gathering dust.
His first thoughts were about the children.
“No, there’s children, there’s babies in there,” he recalled.
He instructed his phone to call 911.
The dispatcher began asking questions.
But Giamanco had already made his decision.
“I’m sorry, I have to go in. People are going to die.”
He jumped the fence and followed the attacker, keeping out of sight as the teenager approached the school’s glass entrance.
Then he heard gunshots.
The gunman had blasted through the locked doors.
Giamanco dropped to the ground and crawled toward the building.
Inside, children were screaming.
He heard gunfire coming from a classroom.
What he thought at that moment is almost impossible to read without imagining his own children somewhere in that building.
“I told myself this is probably the last thing that I’m ever going to do.”
He continued forward.
Crawling through a shattered window, Giamanco moved along the hallway until he reached the special education classroom.
Through the window, he saw a teacher physically struggling with the gunman.
She was fighting for the children.
And she had given him an opportunity to act.
Giamanco opened the classroom door and fired at the attacker.
Both the gunman and teacher fell. The teacher scrambled away.
When the wounded attacker reached toward his shotgun, Giamanco fired twice more, ending the assault.
By then, police sirens were approaching.
Giamanco put his weapon down and raised his hands when officers arrived.
Only minutes had passed since he spotted the attacker outside.
Four innocent people were already dead.
And now, more than a week later, that is what he cannot stop thinking about.
After leaving the school, Giamanco returned to his truck and called his wife.
He told her he wouldn’t be coming home for tacos.
Then he called his mother, Kenda Freeman.
She tried to comfort him, telling him he had done the right thing and saved lives.
But Giamanco couldn’t accept that without thinking about the people who hadn’t survived.
He said he now lies awake after his family goes to bed, replaying those terrible minutes.
“I relive, I see faces, I hear voices, I hear screams.”
He wonders whether he could have moved faster.
Whether he could have reached the classroom sooner.
Whether there was something else he could have done.
And then came the moment in the interview when the emotions became overwhelming.
Speaking about the parents who lost their children, Giamanco said he wishes he could apologize to them.
“I want to apologize for not saving their babies.”
He explained that although he appreciates the gratitude from parents whose children survived, he continues to think about those he couldn’t reach in time.
It is an extraordinary burden for a man who happened to be driving home for lunch.
Yet Giamanco refuses to accept all the credit.
He repeatedly praised the teacher who fought the gunman inside the classroom, saying her resistance gave him the opportunity to intervene.
“I would love to give her a hug because that’s a real true hero.”
Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz has credited both the teacher and Giamanco with courage that likely prevented additional deaths.
President Donald Trump also praised the father’s actions, calling him a great hero.
But Giamanco says he doesn’t want the tragedy turned into a political shouting match.
He describes himself as an independent and insists his priorities are the children, their families and preventing another attack.
One idea already taking shape is a charity motocross race that would raise money for school security.
He wants stronger locks, protective glass and additional security measures, including school resource officers.
He also raised a question that deserves some serious consideration.
“We have smart homes. We have smart cars. Why can’t we have smart schools?”
For now, Giamanco and his family are trying to recover.
They have temporarily left their home, which is close enough to the school that they can see it.
His daughters are not expected to return to classes anytime soon.
His youngest has been hugging him constantly.
His older daughter, he says, understands more about what happened and has been quieter.
And their father, who described himself as an ordinary carpenter before all of this, isn’t certain whether he’ll return to construction work.
He hopes to use the attention he’s received to make schools safer.
But what comes through most clearly in his first interview isn’t a desire for fame, recognition or a political platform.
It’s a father thinking about other fathers and mothers whose children never came home.
And a man who ran toward a classroom full of screaming children, fully expecting that he might never see his own daughters again.
DBS WIRE SOURCES (I’ve got all day).
- Oregon Public Broadcasting — Exclusive first interview with Kaylub Giamanco
- Oregon Public Broadcasting — Video of Giamanco’s emotional interview
- Associated Press — Oregon father describes regret over children he couldn’t save
- CBS News — Hero dad describes confronting gunman and aftermath
- NBC News — Father describes believing intervention would be his final act
- The Guardian — Father’s first account of stopping Oregon shooter
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