Kaylub Giamanco, 36, a carpenter with two daughters at the school, was driving back from his lunch break when he heard gunfire coming from the campus, Bend police said. He parked his car near the building, took a legally registered 40-caliber pistol from his vehicle and raced inside, firing several close-range shots at the attacker and killing him.
The 16-year-old attacker first opened fire outside the school with a shotgun, aiming at a driver who tried to confront him. He then shot through locked doors and forced his way on to the elementary school campus. Before Giamanco arrived, a teacher threw a cellphone at the assailant and tackled him, trying to wrestle the gun from his hands.
The shooting also left 54-year-old teacher Becky Drury with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
In a September 2018 Facebook post, Giamanco wrote that he had gone "shooting with a group of guys who served in combat together in Iraq." Neither Bend police nor Giamanco and his family have connected the Facebook post to the incident.
After the shooting, Giamanco called his mother, Kenda Freeman, who told CNN affiliate KOVR: "He said, 'Mom, I just shot and killed somebody.'" Freeman said she was thankful her own children were safe but her heart went out to the families of the victims. "There are babies that are not. And that's ... that's hard to swallow, because my heart goes out to those families. They didn't get to bring their babies home," she said.
Giamanco's brother, Kyle Giamanco, told the New York Post he was not comfortable with his brother being described as a hero.