The father who shot and killed the shooter at an Oregon elementary school last month says he can still hear the students’ screams.
“The problem for me is just closing my eyes and hearing children’s screams and what it sounds like for them to plead for their life,” Kaylub Giamanco said on Tuesday’s episode of “CBS Mornings.”
“That’s where it’s really disturbing for me,” he said, adding: “Sometimes I get trapped in my brain.”
On Oct. 15, Giamanco was driving home from work on his lunch break when he saw a boy with a gun walk into Silver Rail Elementary, where his children go to school. His “fight or flight” kicked in, he said Tuesday, so he entered the school with his own firearm and found the shooter in a struggle with a teacher. By that time, the 16-year-old shooter had already killed three kids ― ages 5, 8 and 11 ― and one teacher. Giamanco said he didn’t want to kill anyone, but that taking out the shooter was necessary to prevent more deaths.
Once he was reunited with his daughter, Giamanco said he had mixed feelings — happy he got to hold her but sad for the parents whose kids died that day.
A teacher also fought the shooter, throwing her phone at him and then tackling him before Giamanco shot and killed him.
President Donald Trump praised Giamanco, and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek (D) said she was thinking of him and the “heavy emotional burden” he will carry.
Gun rights activists have long advocated for teachers to be armed, so they can fire at a school shooter if necessary. But Lindsay Nichols, policy director at Giffords, an organization fighting to end the gun violence epidemic, said that shouldn’t be the solution.
“A parent shooting a killer inside their child’s school is not a success story,” Nichols told HuffPost. “It is a tragedy. No parent or teacher should ever be required to be that brave.”
She said passing common-sense gun laws works better than a bystander being responsible for taking down a shooter, adding that there are a lot of ways that day could have gone wrong, including police mistaking Giamanco as the shooter.
The gun the 16-year-old shooter used in the shooting was purchased by his mother, police told The Associated Press. Nichols said guns used in mass shootings coming from the shooter’s own home is a “theme” she has seen.
“Oregon law, for example, currently allows a parent to provide a firearm to a child without proper supervision, and that’s a loophole that should be closed,” Nichols said. “The law should require adults to supervise a minor to whom they’ve given a firearm.”