A Bend-La Pine Schools staffer who wrestled the shooter during the deadly attack at Silver Rail Elementary on Oct. 15 spoke publicly on Friday for the first time since the incident.
In a statement posted to the district’s website Friday, the district identified the staffer who engaged with the assailant as Cassidy Schutz, a certified learning specialist with the school.
“There are no words to describe the depth of sadness I am feeling following the events of October 15th,” Schutz said. “This is not a story. This is a horrific and heartbreaking tragedy, and it is our real lives. My thoughts are with those who were lost, their families, those who were hurt, and those who were there that day. My heart is with you.
“It all happened so fast, and I wish with everything in me that we had more time,” Schutz added. “The pain of this loss I will carry with me forever.”
A 16-year-old gunman used a shotgun to breach the glass panes near an exterior door to the school in southeast Bend on Oct. 15. He then entered a special needs classroom and fatally shot three children, ages 5, 8 and 11 and a 25-year-old teacher, while wounding another teaching assistant and 7-year-old girl.
Describing the events in a press conference the day after the shooting, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said a teacher — now identified as Schutz — engaged the shooter in a “physical altercation” described as a “struggle” before a bystander shot the assailant after following him into the school with a handgun.
Kaylub Giamanco, the father of two Silver Rail students who stepped in to end the attack, told Oregon Public Broadcasting the staffer who wrestled with the shooter gave him a chance to make a shot without risking his own life. In the interview, released Oct. 23, Giamanco said he still didn’t know the teacher’s name.
“I would love to give her a hug because that’s a real true hero,” he told OPB.
In the week after the shooting, social media posts erroneously identified Schutz as Becky Drury, a 54-year-old teaching assistant who suffered gunshot wounds to her arms and hand. In a clarifying statement Oct. 21, Drury said she was “shot before I had a chance to act” and fell to the ground and played dead.
Bend Police have confirmed there were four adults and five children in the classroom at the time of the incident, meaning one adult — other than Schutz and one child — were physically unharmed.
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