Our Take: Who Spun It, Who Didn’t
Spin Meter: Light Spin
There’s no joke in three kids and a 25-year-old teacher dead in a special-ed classroom in Bend, so we’re not making one about them. We’ll save it for the coverage.
Here’s what happened. A 16-year-old former student shot through the glass doors with a shotgun his mom bought him. A teacher threw her phone at him, tackled him and fought for the gun. Unarmed. Against a shotgun. Then a carpenter named Kaylub Giamanco, who saw the kid shooting in the parking lot on his way home from lunch, grabbed his legally carried pistol, followed him in and ended it. Two heroes, one with a gun and one with a phone and a death wish.
Now watch the internet split them up like a custody battle. One side gets the teacher, the other side gets the dad, and nobody wants to admit it took both. The cops said it took both. The good part: in about two minutes, two regular people ran toward it. That’s the story. Everything else is people fighting over who gets to tweet it.
Left
MS NOW: “Teacher tackled Oregon school shooter before parent fatally shot him, police say”
Straight off the police chief’s mouth, teacher first, armed dad second, both in the headline. That’s fair and it matches the timeline. We noticed “parent” doing a lot of work to avoid the word “gun” up top, but the facts are all there. Clean.
Center
AP: “Teacher threw cellphone and tackled gunman who killed 4 at Oregon school, police say”
Both heroes, the chief’s words, the victims, the dad’s mom crying on the record. No agenda, just the worst day in Bend told by people who did the reporting. Boring the way a seatbelt is boring.
Right
The core is right: armed dad, legally carrying, stopped him. The Second Amendment point here isn’t spin, it actually happened. But they posted before the press conference, so the teacher who tackled him doesn’t exist in this version, and they flipped the shooter’s name to “John J. Griffin.” It’s Griffin J. John II. Alex, you had one name to get right and you put it on backwards.
The facts, checked
- CONFIRMEDThree children (5, 8, 11) and teacher Megan Lambert, 25, were killed at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend on Oct. 15; a student and a teacher were critically hurt (NBC, CBS).
- CONFIRMEDPolice identified the shooter as Griffin J. John II, 16, a former student; he used a pump-action shotgun his mother bought (NBC, CBS, WaPo).
- CONFIRMEDA teacher threw her phone, tackled him and fought for the gun; Chief Mike Krantz said she “almost certainly helped prevent more bloodshed” (AP, CBS, NBC).
- CONFIRMEDKaylub Giamanco, 36, a father of two students, followed him in and shot him with a legally carried .40-caliber pistol (CBS, BBC, AP).
- FALSEAlex Jones Live’s shooter name “John J. Griffin” is wrong; police said Griffin J. John II.
Closest to the truth: AP (center)
Everybody got the big picture right, and the right’s point that an armed citizen stopped it is true. Alex Jones Live jumped early, got the shooter’s name backwards and skipped the teacher. MS NOW and AP had the full timeline. Left slightly more accurate on details, right correct on the point it was making.
Satire-free zone: the jokes are ours, the facts are not made up. Grades and “Our Take” are analysis and opinion, not news. Scores follow the facts, not the team jersey.
A teacher tackled the teenager who opened fire at an Oregon elementary school Thursday, allowing an armed parent to fatally shoot the gunman, authorities said Friday, revealing new details of the attack that killed three children and one adult.
Speaking at a news conference, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said the teenager — a former…
Read the full story at MS NOW
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