Kaylub Giamanco, a 36-year-old carpenter and father of two, was hailed as a hero when he gunned down an armed teenager on a shooting rampage at his children’s elementary school in Bend, Oregon.
Three children and a teacher were killed last Thursday, but it could have been much worse.
Police say Giamanco likely saved many other lives in the school of 400. President Donald Trump called him “a great hero that went in and did the business.”
But Giamanco, in his first interview, told Oregon Public Broadcastingthis week he only thinks of the children he didn’t save.
“I want to apologize for not saving their babies,” Giamanco told the news station. “The gratitude for saving people’s children is awesome, but there were ones that I didn’t save.”
Giamanco told OPB he has lain awake every night since the shooting, replaying that afternoon. He was driving home for lunch when he saw a “man in black” use a long gun to fire twice at a red pickup truck then once more at a woman mowing the lawn at Silver Rail Elementary School, the school Giamanco’s 5- and 10-year-old daughters attend.
The shooter threw the gun over the fence, Giamanco said, then climbed it. Giamanco told OPB he rarely uses his .40 caliber handgun, but he pulled it from his truck’s center console, then grabbed a magazine from a separate compartment, and drove into the school parking lot.
“I just was in full panic, like, ‘No, there’s children, there’s babies in there.’ I told my Siri to call 911,” he said. He told the dispatcher he couldn’t talk.
“I said, ‘I’m sorry, I have to go in. People are going to die.’”
Giamanco told OPB he hopped over a fence and tried to remain out of sight as he pursued the shooter. He heard the teenager fire two shots into the glass double doors on the school’s side entrance, then he ran toward the building himself. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled toward a special-education classroom.
“That’s when I started hearing children pleading for their lives,” Giamanco said. “I started hearing gunfire and I just started army crawling faster and faster, and I told myself this is probably the last thing that I’m ever going to do.”
Giamanco told OPB he saw a teacher struggling with the shooter. He swung the door open, stepped in, and fired.
Both the teacher and the shooter dropped to the floor. The teacher jumped up, then ran out of the classroom, but the shooter scrambled for his gun, so Giamanco shot him twice more.
When he felt it was safe, Giamanco walked out of the classroom, laid his handgun on the ground, then held his hands up.
Giamanco told OPB he has relived the incident over and over in the week since. He hears the screams. He sees the faces. He thinks about the teenager he shot.
Giamanco said he hasn’t spoken to the teacher who wrestled with the shooter. He doesn’t even know her name.
“I would love to give her a hug because that’s a real true hero,” he said.
Giamanco said his daughters won’t return to Silver Rail for a while. His family could see the school from their home, so they’ve moved temporarily. He hasn’t returned to work, and he isn’t sure if he will go back to carpentry.
“I feel like I was put on this earth to do something more than just fix houses,” he said.
Read Giamanco’s interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting here.
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