Mother of Bend school gunman says her son was a good boy amid tears

The mother of the teenager who opened fire at a Bend elementary school broke down outside her apartment and insisted her son had been a good kid even after he killed four people.

Tears on the sidewalk

Shauntai May Nickerson spoke through tears to the New York Times outside her home in Bend. She called 16-year-old John J. Griffin II "a good boy" and said she missed him. She also apologized and said she would have stopped the massacre if she could have.

She smoked a cigarette while she struggled to get the words out.

Long-running struggles

Griffin had been in trouble for years. During the COVID-19 pandemic Nickerson told local station KTVZ that her son had special needs and that remote learning was hard on him. She said he needed trained educators to succeed.

District records show he took part in NEST, a local support track for pupils with deep behavioral and social needs.

The attack and how it ended

On Thursday he brought the gun into Silver Rail Elementary. Three children and one teacher died inside a classroom for students with disabilities on the campus where he had once been enrolled.

Reports say he carried a pump-action shotgun his mother had bought. She would not say how he got the gun.

Kaylub Giamanco, a father who was armed, ran after him into the building and shot him dead. Police have not announced a motive.