Bend, Oregon, is mourning three children and a teacher killed Thursday in a special needs classroom at Silver Rail Elementary, the school the gunman once attended.
Silver Rail teaches kindergarten through fifth grade, roughly ages 5 to 11, with about 450 students and 40 staff members. It sits on the edge of a city of about 100,000 in central Oregon’s high desert, 175 miles southeast of Portland. At 12:59 p.m. Thursday, the first 911 call described a man who had shot into a car outside. Within a minute, other callers said someone was firing inside the building. Officers arrived around 1:02 and found the gunman already dead.
Hundreds of officers converged on the campus and cleared it room by room. Parents crowded the area, and the district sent families to a reunification site at Journey Church. Police spokesperson Sheila Miller told reporters, “We know children are among the victims.”
BREAKING: Federal law enforcement officials have confirmed that several people have been killed at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon, and the suspect is dead.
Bend PD’s Sheila Miller: “We don’t have a number at this point. We know children are among the victims.”
At least two people were taken to St. Charles. Police got a p.m. call about a shot into a car, arrived in minutes, and the shooter was already down inside.
Miller said it “may have been a bystander” that took out the suspect.
— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) October 15, 2026
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Friday’s police briefing turned the unknowns into names and ages. Three boys, ages 5, 8 and 11, and a 25-year-old teacher, Meghan Lambert, died in a single classroom. The youngest was Rhoam Summer, and his relatives told NBC News they are “broken and lost.”
Two others survived. A 7-year-old girl who uses a wheelchair is in serious but stable condition after surgery, and teacher Becky Drury, 54, has injuries that are serious but not life-threatening. The brother of the man who stopped the gunman told NBC News he is friends with the girl’s family.
Investigators are still putting the sequence together. ABC News reports that the gunman shot through a door and went into the classroom just inside the entry, where Chief Mike Krantz said he “fired as many as 15 rounds overall.” The New York Post, citing sources, reported that two bystanders first turned him away at the front door, and he circled around back and blew off the lock.
One of those bystanders was Kaylub Giamanco, a 36-year-old carpenter whose two daughters attend Silver Rail. NBC News reports that he pursued the teenager and shot him.
The gunman was 16, a Bend resident who had been in the school’s special needs program but was no longer enrolled in the district. Officials said they could not confirm whether he had been in that particular classroom. They have not offered a motive, and law enforcement officials told NBC News his mother bought the pump-action shotgun around his birthday in August.
Condolences began arriving within hours. Superintendent Steven Cook said, “We are stunned and heartbroken by this senseless tragedy.” Miller said, “It’s devastating and our hearts go out to the community.” Gov. Tina Kotek wrote, “No community should have to live through this day,” and Sen. Ron Wyden pointed to “another school shooting in America.”
As we learn more about the tragic event at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend today, we must come together and support each other, neighbor to neighbor, Oregonian to Oregonian. No community should have to live through this day.
— Governor Tina Kotek (@GovTinaKotek) October 15, 2026
My heart is with the victims of today’s shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School and their loved ones now facing the consequences of another school shooting in America. Once again we must ask how many schools must be shot up before Republicans agree to act to curb gun violence.
— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) October 15, 2026
Featured image via X screengrab
