Police tape is placed outside Silver Rail Elementary school, where a shooting took place, on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026 in Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Joe Kline)

The Oregon man who fatally shot a teenage gunman to end a deadly rampage at an elementary school last week says he was the children's  last line of defense  and that he regrets not arriving soon enough to save them all.

Kaylub Giamanco, whose two daughters attend Silver Rail Elementary, where the Oct. 15 attack occurred, said he feels like he failed the families of those who died.


 I want to apologize for not saving their babies, that's probably the biggest thing for me right now,  Giamanco told Oregon Public Broadcasting in an interview published Friday.  The gratitude for saving people's children is awesome. But there were ones that I didn't save. 

Three children - ages 5, 8 and 11 - and a teacher were killed at the school in Bend, Oregon, last week when a former student there, 16-year-old Griffin J. John II, blasted his way through locked doors with a shotgun and attacked a special needs classroom. Another student was critically injured and a teacher was injured and hospitalized.

Police say another teacher threw her phone at the attacker and wrestled with him before Giamanco shot and killed him after following the gunman into the building.

Giamanco said he dropped off his daughters at the school that morning before driving to work. A few hours later, the 36-year-old carpenter was passing the school again as he was heading home for lunch.

He said he spotted someone wearing black and carrying a long gun fire shots into a pickup truck and at a person mowing the school's lawn before the shooter climbed a fence and headed toward the school building.

Giamanco said  panic fled into my brain.  He grabbed a .40-caliber handgun from his truck's center console and went after the gunman as he dialed 911. He asked the dispatcher to send help before hanging up his phone.

 I said 'I'm sorry I have to go in. People are going to die,'  Giamanco said in the interview.

`This is probably the last thing that I'm ever going to d
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