Newly released 911 audio captures Oregon father Kaylub Giamanco telling a dispatcher he was prepared to confront a gunman at his daughters’ elementary school. “I have a gun and I will shoot them right now,” he says.
The call was made outside Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend on Oct. 15, before Giamanco went inside and intervened in an attack that killed three children and a teacher.
“Oh my god. Hello 911. Someone’s at the school. My daughter’s school with a gun,” Giamanco says in the recording, released by the Deschutes 911 Service District. The dispatcher tells him to wait for police and asks him to stay on the line.
As the call continues, people can be heard trying to establish where the attacker is and whether he is shooting. Giamanco says the gunman is entering the building from the south side, then warns that people are being shot.
Giamanco, a 36-year-old carpenter whose two daughters attended the school, later told Oregon Public Broadcasting that he feared he would not make it out alive. He said he heard children pleading for their lives, followed by gunfire, and crawled faster toward the danger, thinking it might be the last thing he ever did.
He entered the school carrying a .40-caliber pistol he legally kept in his vehicle, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said at a news conference the following day. A teacher had thrown her cellphone at the 16-year-old attacker and tackled him. Giamanco then shot the gunman multiple times, Krantz said.
The victims were three children, ages 5, 8 and 11, and 25-year-old teacher Meghan Lambert. Another child and a second teacher were wounded, police said.
Giamanco has been praised for stopping the attacker, but he has also spoken about the people he could not save. “I want to apologize for not saving their babies,” he told OPB, adding that he was grateful to have helped some families but remained distressed about those who died.
Lambert’s family said they were grateful to Giamanco for stepping in, and recognized that he was going through a difficult time. “You selflessly put yourself at risk for others,” the family said.
