Oregon school shooter John J Griffin, 16, deliberately targeted his old special needs classroom massacre that killed four

Five weeks before he went on a shooting rampage at an elementary school, a teenage mass killer stared at a camera with a murderous gaze.

John J Griffin, 16, killed three children aged five, eight, and 11, and their teacher at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday afternoon.

He also critically wounded a 54-year-old teacher and shot a seven-year-old child who uses a wheelchair in the face, both of whom are still in hospital.

The first victim of the shooting has been named as a five-year-old boy called Rhoam Summer. The identities of her teacher and two classmates are not yet public. 

Griffin began firing after entering a special education class, where he himself was a student when he attended the school as a young child.

He was so determined to target his former class that when he was fired upon when he tried to enter the front door, he ran around to the back entrance, police said.

The teen killer first threw the Maverick 88 12-gauge pump-action shotgun over the fence before jumping over – but found himself blocked from entering.

Griffin was fired upon by hero dad Kalub Giamanco – who would later shoot the teen dead – and blocked by another bystander’s van that he riddled with bullets.

Instead of giving up, he ran to the back entrance and blasted his way through a ‘safety vestibule’ system designed to keep children at the school safe from school shooters. 

Griffin was gangly with a patchy moustache and goatee and looked sullen in a haunting photo posted by his mother Shauntai Nickerson last month.

Nickerson told a TV station in 2020 that she was pleased students were going back to the classroom as her son was struggling with distance learning during Covid lockdowns.

‘I think it will be great for Griffin, because I am not certified teaching a special needs student,’ she told KTVZ 21. 

‘And I think it will be great for my son to get the help that he needs from the skilled teachers that he needs to get it from.’

The future murderer was in the NEST (Nurturing Empathy Safety and Trust) program, which helped special education students ‘experiencing intensive behavioral and social skills challenges’.

Griffin used his mother’s shotgun to carry out the massacre, which police said was bought about the time of his 16th birthday.

Nickerson, 43, a medical aide at Touchmark Living Centers, has a long list of traffic violations and was charged with DUI at 1.37am on July 29, 2018, by local police in Bend.

She was also convicted of harassment in 2023 with a second charge of fourth-degree assault from the same incident dismissed.

Nickerson insisted to reporters who confronted her outside her home in Bend that her son was ‘a good boy’ and she would have stopped him if she could. 

Griffin’s motive is unknown, but he attended the school as a child before moving on to the local high school. 

Police raided Griffin’s family home on Thursday night, seizing computers and other electronic devices. Family was said to be cooperative.

Griffin was shot dead minutes after he began his rampage by Kalub Giamanco, 36, a dad of two children at the school who heard the gunshots as he drove home for his lunch break.

Giamanco’s wife Kelsey and brother Kyle, along with several of his friends, confirmed he was the hero who intervened by running inside the school.

He holds a concealed carry permit and is friends with the family of the seven-year-old in the wheelchair who was wounded. 

Giamanco shot Griffin dead within moments of the massacre beginning just before 1pm on Thursday.