Ed wrote about this story last month when it happened. The shooting took place at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon. A teenager armed with a shotgun, shot his way inside the school and then murdered four people before he was stopped. 

But he wouldn't have been stopped at all, at least not by the police. The person who ended the shooter's killing spree was a father of two kids who attend Silver Rail Elementary. By a complete fluke, he happened to be driving by the school around lunchtime and saw a teen with a gun.

Kaylub Giamanco woke up and got his kids ready for school that Thursday like it was any other day. The family made breakfast and packed lunches. He and his wife spent a little extra time dressing up their two girls because Oct. 15 was picture day at Silver Rail Elementary.

Giamanco dropped the girls off as usual, then the 36-year-old carpenter headed to a job site northeast of Bend. He had brought a packed lunch in his truck, but when afternoon came around, he decided to go home instead to eat leftover tacos with his wife. He thought about running some errands on the way, but decided against it. He was four blocks from their house when he turned on Brentwood Avenue, the road running along the south side of Silver Rail.

In an exclusive interview with OPB, Giamanco described the series of seemingly insignificant decisions that brought him to that intersection at 12:58 p.m. that day — the same time a 16-year-old carrying a shotgun approached his children’s school. It was the packed lunch he didn’t eat, the masonry shop where he didn’t stop, the bolts he needed but didn’t buy, and the gun he says had just been “collecting dust” in his truck console...

Right after he turned on Brentwood Avenue Oct. 15, Giamanco noticed a “man in black” holding a long gun. This must be a prank, or a BB gun, he remembered thinking. Then he saw the shooter fire twice at a red pickup truck and turn toward the school grounds to fire once more at a woman mowing the school’s lawn.

The shooter was later identified as 16-year-old Griffin J. John II, a former special needs student at Silver Rail Elementary. Giancomo saw him firing, grabbed his gun and then called 911. Yesterday, that 911 call was released. As you'll hear, he was very worked up and the 911 dispatcher was telling him to do nothing.

Fortunately, Giancomo didn't listen. He dropped off the call after giving the address and location of the shooter and then went inside to confront him. He later said he thought it might be how his life was going to end.

“That’s when I started hearing children pleading for their lives and then I started hearing gunfire and I just started army crawling faster and faster and I told myself this is probably the last thing that I’m ever going to do.”

He crawled through a window and then saw the shooter wrestling with a female teacher. Her story was mentioned later by the police as having saved lives.

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Giancomo entered the room and shot the offender once, but he was still reaching for his gun.

“He was scrambling for his weapon,” he said. “I looked at him and I shot him two more times to make sure that he couldn’t move because I was afraid of him shooting anybody else.”

The difference between Giancomo's response and that of the dozens of cops who stood around doing nothing in Uvalde, Texas is night and day. One man with actual courage is worth 50 who lack any.