Kaylub Giamanco, the Oregon father praised for stopping a school shooting , has spoken publicly for the first time about how he followed the gunman into an elementary school and shot him.
What happened on the day of the shooting?
He has received national attention and praise for stopping the bloodshed at Silver Rail Elementary, where his children go to school. He is from Bend. He grew up hunting birds with his grandfather. Giamanco helped his two daughters get ready for picture day, dropped them at school and drove to a job site. He had packed lunch, but he had to go into town to buy supplies. He asked her to reheat some leftover tacos. He drove onto Brentwood Avenue, which runs right by the school. He saw a figure in black with a long gun fire twice at a red pickup truck and once into a field. Then the gunman threw the weapon over a fence by the school. Then he saw the man fire the gun and climb over a school fence. He took it out, put the magazine in and drove into the school parking lot. Giamanco hopped over a fence and crept behind the attacker. He heard the attacker fire into the side doors of the school and blast his way in. Giamanco followed quietly without the teenager seeing him. He crawled in through a window that had been shot out. John was wrestling with a teacher.
Giamanco is a 36-year-old carpenter. Police said Giamanco had a .40 caliber handgun legally stored in his truck. The gunman, armed with a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, was walking along the outside of the school. Giamanco asked Siri to call 911. He looked into a special education classroom and saw the attacker, later identified as Griffin J John II, 16, a former special education student at the school.
The day started like any other, according to The New York Times . So he called his wife and said he would come home for lunch instead. For a moment Giamanco thought it was a prank, according to The Guardian . At one point he crawled on his hands and knees when he heard “children pleading for their lives”.
