Released 911 Audio From the Bend, Oregon, School Shooting Has a Father Telling the Dispatcher 'I Have a Gun, and I Will Shoot Them Right Now' Before He Stopped the Gunman, Fox News Reports
Fox News says the Deschutes 911 district released the call from Kaylub Giamanco, who entered Silver Rail Elementary with a legally kept pistol on Oct. 15. Three children and a teacher died. A dispatcher can be heard telling him not to act.
Newly released audio puts a voice to the moments outside Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, Fox News reports. This story involves the deaths of children.
The call. The Deschutes 911 Service District released a recording of a call from Kaylub Giamanco on Oct. 15, the day of the attack. Fox says he told the dispatcher someone was at his daughter's school with a gun and said, "I have a gun, and I will shoot them right now." The dispatcher answered: "OK, tell me exactly what happened. Don't do anything. Let me get an officer there, OK?" and asked him to stay on the line.
On the line. Fox says that as the call went on, Giamanco said the attacker was on the south side entering the building and warned that people were being shot. The dispatcher said help was on the way.
What he told the press. Fox quotes him telling Oregon Public Broadcasting that he heard children pleading for their lives and then gunfire, and that he crawled faster because he thought it might be the last thing he did. He is a 36-year-old carpenter with two daughters at the school.
What police said. According to Fox, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said at an Oct. 16 news conference that Giamanco went in with a .40-caliber pistol he legally kept in his vehicle. He found a teacher struggling with the 16-year-old attacker. The chief said she had thrown her cellphone at the gunman and tackled him, and Giamanco then shot him several times.
The toll. Three children, ages 5, 8 and 11, and 25-year-old teacher Megan Lambert were killed, Fox says. One child and another teacher were wounded.
The cost to him. Giamanco told OPB, "I want to apologize for not saving their babies." Lambert's family said in a statement read at the October news conference that they consider the bystander a hero.
Why it matters here. The recording is part of the debate over how the attack was stopped and over guns in schools, which our commentary has touched on. It also shows a dispatcher following the usual instruction to wait for officers while a gunman was inside. The report does not say whether the dispatcher's instruction changed anything, and we do not draw that conclusion.
What we could not check. We read Fox's account, not the full audio. The details of the shooting come from police and from Giamanco's own interview.