Trump calls the Bend bystander a great hero, the wounded girl improves to serious but stable, and the shooters mother says he was a good boy

Two days after the shooting, Bend is learning the smaller facts, and some of them are better than the first days news.

President Trump, speaking to reporters before a rally in Georgia on Friday, praised the man who stopped the attack at Silver Rail Elementary School. He called Kaylub Giamanco a great hero, said he took care of business, and said thank God we had him, because otherwise it would have been much worse. Giamanco, 36, a carpenter and a parent of two girls at the school, was driving home on his lunch break when he saw the attacker going in, followed him inside with a gun he kept legally in his car, and shot him dead. His family said on Friday that he is not seeking recognition, thanked first responders and the community, and asked for privacy. Governor Tina Kotek also praised him, saying his actions carried a heavy emotional burden.

The wounded are doing better than the first reports allowed anyone to hope. The girl of 7 who uses a wheelchair, shot in the special needs classroom, had improved by Friday to serious but stable condition. The second wounded teacher was named by her family as Becky Drury, 54, and her injuries were described as serious but no longer life threatening.

The investigation filled in the shape of the attack. Police say Griffin J. John II, 16, a former special needs pupil at the school, climbed the fence, fired at a driver who confronted him, shot his way through a locked set of double doors, and fired multiple rounds into the special needs classroom where he had once been taught. He fired about 15 rounds and had 44 more in his backpack, according to reporting from the scene. The shotgun was a pump action weapon purchased by his mother. A teacher in the room threw her phone at him, tackled him and fought him for the gun. Police searched his home on Thursday and took computers and other electronic devices, and his parents were interviewed and were cooperative, a senior law enforcement official told CNN. Police Chief Mike Krantz said everyone wants to know why, including the police, and that investigators are examining whether there were mental health concerns or warning signs.

His mother, Shauntai May Nickerson, spoke to the New York Times. She said her son was a good boy, he really was, and that if she could have prevented this, she would have. In 2020 she had told local television that remote learning was hard for him because he needed trained educators. The dead remain Rhoam Summer, 5, Megan Lambert, 25, and two boys of 8 and 11 whose families have asked that their names be withheld, as of October 17.