Court documents reveal that Griffin John, the 16-year-old who killed three children and a teacher at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon, last Thursday, was born into a home shaped by violence his father inflicted on his mother before he ever drew breath.
According to the documents, obtained by the New York Post, Griffin John II’s father, also named Griffin John, was an alcoholic who beat the boy’s mother, Shauntai Nickerson, and threatened her with a knife while she was pregnant. The abuse forced her to flee across the state to the coastal town of Newport.
The elder John was sentenced to 48 months in prison for the attack on Nickerson but was released early. In letters to a judge, he asked that a restraining order against him be lifted so he could “see his son grow up.” He also admitted in those letters to a history of alcohol abuse and said he had been jailed “several times in the past.”
Eight months after his release, Griffin John II was born. His parents did not stay together. Within months, Nickerson moved their son three hours west to Bend.
The elder John’s freedom didn’t last. He was arrested again in 2012 in Newport, accused of head-butting a police officer and violating his parole by drinking and smoking marijuana. Court records do not make clear whether he was convicted in that case. A bartender in Toledo, Nickerson’s hometown, told reporters he once made lewd remarks to a teenage girl.
Police say Griffin John II used his mother’s shotgun to break into Silver Rail Elementary last Thursday, targeting the special education classroom. He killed 5-year-old Rhoam Summer, an 8-year-old, an 11-year-old, and teacher Megan Lambert, 25. A 7-year-old in a wheelchair was shot in the face and hospitalized, and a 54-year-old teacher was also wounded. An armed parent confronted and killed the shooter inside the school.
Both the John and Nickerson families carry rough reputations back in their hometown in eastern Oregon. Neither Nickerson nor John II could be reached for comment, and several family members refused to speak to reporters. One family member threatened a reporter with dogs.
“I’m sorry … I miss him,” Nickerson told reporters the day after the shooting.
She said her son “was a good boy, he really was,” but would not say how he obtained her shotgun. “If I could have prevented this, I would have,” she said.
