The 16-year-old accused of killing three children and a teacher and wounding two others at an elementary school in Oregon had reportedly been assaulted twice in the years before the shooting, including once by his mother’s boyfriend.
Authorities are still investigating what prompted Griffin John II to open fire at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend on October 15. The attack killed five-year-old Rhoam Summer, teacher Megan Lambert and two other special-needs students whose identities have not been released publicly.
Court records offer details about John’s troubled background. The teenager, who had a cognitive disability, was allegedly bullied by classmates and lived in a turbulent household where both of his parents were involved in violent incidents and encounters with law enforcement.
When John was 11, he was also allegedly assaulted at home by a friend of his sister, according to a police report obtained by KGW.
In the 2022 incident, his mother, Shauntai Nickerson, told police that the friend had ‘slapped John across the face, causing him to chip a tooth’ before ‘punching John in the back of the head.’
John said the confrontation began after he returned home and his sister’s friend asked whether he wanted to fight. The friend then slapped him, chipping one of his lower front teeth.
John told police that the friend followed the slap by ‘punching him in the back of the head four to six times.’
During a later police interview, John’s sister described returning home to find him upset and crying. John told her that he was being bullied at school.
Griffin John II, 16, had reportedly been assaulted twice before opening fire at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon, on October 15
Five-year-old Rhoam Summer and teacher Megan Lambert were killed in the shooting
‘John expressed concerns about reporting the bullying at school because his mom would get upset,’ the officer wrote in the report.
Nickerson told police that John ‘had special needs.’ The responding officer wrote that he appeared to have a cognitive disability, citing his ‘nonverbal speech communication and speech patterns.’
The officer said he attempted to contact the alleged attacker, but every phone number associated with the individual had been disconnected or was no longer in service.
A second officer later visited the home but was likewise unable to speak with the friend, according to the report.
More than three years later, in 2025, John was allegedly punched repeatedly by a man who had been in a relationship with Nickerson, according to a separate police report.
Nickerson told police that she had argued with the man over his involvement with other women before placing his belongings outside her apartment.
The man later returned, banged on the apartment’s front door and eventually forced his way inside. John said the man threatened to beat both him and his mother.
The confrontation turned physical when John said he tried to protect his mother as the man refused to leave.
He said the man ‘began to get violent, and I didn’t want him to hurt my mom at all.’
John shot at the locked doors of Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, before opening fire
Authorities are still trying to determine a motive for the deadly shooting
So, John said, he told the man he needed to leave – prompting the assailant to shove John twice, forcing him to drop his phone.
When John then went to pick it up, the man ‘body slammed’ him to the ground, wrapping his arm around his head and neck, the police report said.
The man then punched John in the head about 12 to 14 times, he claimed, but fled after he learned that police were called to the scene.
But Nickerson and John ultimately decided they did not want to cooperate in the investigation and pursue charges, saying the matter had been resolved.
Other court documents detail how Nickerson was twice accused of assault in Deschutes County, but was never charged in the first incident and the charges were dropped by the District Attorney the second time.
One January 2023 police report obtained by the Oregon Journalism Project details how Nickerson and her elder daughter, Ariel Swan, then 19, assaulted a woman outside a Taco Bell.
The report, based on conversations with Nickerson, Swan, bystanders and the victim, says Nickerson followed the woman down an alley in a white SUV and tried to run her over, according to the Oregon Journalism Project.
It also describes Nickerson ‘yelling obscenities’ at the woman from an open car window before she and her daughter jumped out of the SUV and attacked the alleged victim.
Nickerson and Swan told police in the aftermath that the victim slept with Nickerson’s ex-boyfriend, but the victim denied the claim and said she did not know the two women.
John’s mother, Shauntai Nickerson, was twice accused of assault in Deschutes County, court records show
Meanwhile, a bystander told officers that Nickerson and Swan ‘definitely assaulted’ the woman and ‘definitely hunted her down.’
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Swan was ultimately arrested and charged with harassment and attempted fourth-degree assault.
During her arrest, according to the Bend police report, Nickerson ‘charged’ at the officers, saying: ‘If you arrest her, you’re gonna arrest me too, because I’m going to be next.’
Nickerson, however, was never arrested or charged in connection with the assault.
But less than two months later, Nickerson was charged with assault and harassment in a separate incident involving a different victim.
Court records do not include a police report or provide specifics about the charges, only that Nickerson caused ‘physical injury to the victim,’ a woman in her early 40s, according to the Oregon Journalism Project.
Nickerson ultimately pleaded guilty to harassment in October 2023, but two weeks later, Deschutes County District Attorney Steve Gunnels’s office dismissed the assault charge.
It said in a statement that the prosecutor on the case did not believe she had enough evidence to convict.
Community members were seen embracing at a makeshift memorial outside the school
A memorial was set up outside the school following the shooting
Despite the allegations, Nickerson was able to purchase a Mossberg Maverick 88 pump-action shotgun for her son, registered in her name.
John then used that firearm when he forced his way into Silver Rail Elementary School on October 15, and fired off 15 rounds before he was fatally shot by heroic father Kaylub Giamanco, 36.
Giamanco recalled having a totally normal morning before the shooting would change everything. He got his kids up, made them ‘pretty’ for school photos, and drove them to school.
Hours later, Giamanco would be driving home on his lunch break when he spotted Griffin John II shooting at a red vehicle in front of him. Then he saw John throw his shotgun over the fence and follow after it, heading toward the school one of Giamanco’s daughters were in.
‘That’s when panic flooded into my brain,’ he told Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB).
‘No, no, no, no,’ he recalled himself saying as he grabbed his gun from his center console and loaded the magazine. ‘Full panic. I was like: “No, there’s children, there’s babies in there!”‘
He called 911 to report the shooter entering the school, but he hung up before he could answer all the dispatcher’s questions.
‘I’m sorry, but I have to go in. People are going to die,’ he told the dispatcher.
As Giamanco crawled along the windows of the school after John fired two shots, he recalled hearing small children ‘plead for their lives.’
‘And then I started hearing gunfire,’ he told OPB. ‘I started army-crawling faster and faster. And I told myself: “This is probably the last thing I’m ever going to do.”‘
He would follow the gunman into the school, where the father-of-two would see the gunman struggling with a teacher.
Kaylub Giamanco, 36, grew emotional recalling how he shot John dead
One of Giamanco’s daughters attended Silver Rail Elementary. He said he went into a panic and quickly grabbed his gun from his center console when he saw John throw his rifle over the fence and follow after it
The father would swing the classroom door open and open fire at the teenager, who used to be a student at Silver Rail. The teacher then looked at Giamanco in fear, thinking he was a second shooter.
‘That hurt a lot,’ the hero dad said.
After the teacher left the room, Giamanco saw the gunman scrambling for his weapon. The dad shot him two more times to ‘make sure he couldn’t move,’ he told OPB.
‘I was afraid of him shooting anybody else,’ he said.
Shortly after, the first police officer arrived at the school. He begged the officer to let him call his wife, whom he had communicated with earlier about reheating last night’s tacos for lunch for him.
‘I called my wife to tell her I’m not coming home for tacos, and that I need her to get to the school immediately,’ he said.
He told his wife he had killed somebody and that he had to watch children die. After getting off the phone with his wife, he called his mother.
The father-of-two girls grew emotional as he recalled the phone call with his mother, Kenda Freeman, telling her he just took the life of a child because he was a danger to his daughters, who attended the school.
‘I broke down at that point,’ the father said, as he held back tears retelling it.
‘I can’t tell you what it feels like to take a life,’ he told OPB. ‘It’s really not how I thought my Thursday was going to go.’
