Oregon school shooting: Bend police identify 16-year-old special needs student as shooter; probe underway to find motive
Police identified 16-year-old Griffin J. John II as the shooter who killed three children and a teacher at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon. A parent shot him dead inside the school.
According to the City of Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz, 16-year-old Griffin J. John II is identified as the shooter in the elementary school shooting that took place at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon. John was once a special needs student at the very school where he carried out the attack, killing three students and a 25-year-old teacher. Police say he fired as many as 15 shots from a 12-gauge shotgun, leaving around 44 rounds remaining when he was killed.
The pump-action shotgun was purchased by John's mother, Shauntai Nickerson. In an interview with local news station KTVZ in 2020, Nickerson expressed remorse over the incident, stating that she wished she could have prevented it. However, she did not provide information on how her son obtained the shotgun. Krantz reported that a man in a red pickup truck made the first 911 call early Thursday afternoon after seeing John throw a gun over the school fence and climb over it.
John then opened fire, striking the truck three times before entering the school through locked doors.
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