Bend School Shooter’s Mother Twice Accused of Assault but Never Convicted

In the week since the mass shooting that claimed four lives at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, questions have proliferated about what led the 16-year-old shooter, Griffin J. John II, to his former elementary school with a loaded shotgun.

The boy’s mother, Shauntai Nickerson, in August legally purchased the Mossberg Maverick 88 pump-action shotgun used in the shooting, according to law enforcement officials. The shotgun, which retails for $250 to $300, was registered in her name. Officials have not revealed where Nickerson bought the gun.

In Oregon, 16- and 17-year-olds can legally possess long guns—rifles and shotguns—if a parent or guardian gives them the weapon.

In the years leading up to her purchase of the shotgun, OJP has determined, Nickerson had brushes with the law that nearly made her ineligible to buy a firearm.

In 2023, court records show, Nickerson was twice accused of assault in Deschutes County. She wasn’t charged in the first incident and charges were dropped by the district attorney the second time. The incidents appear unrelated and had different alleged victims.

Under Oregon law, it is illegal to sell a firearm to a person convicted of a misdemeanor involving violence—such as assault—within the previous four years.

Had either of the assault accusations against Nickerson led to a conviction, she couldn’t have legally purchased the weapon her son used in the shooting.

According to a January 2023 police report, Nickerson, then 40, and her elder daughter, Ariel Swan, then 19, assaulted a woman outside a Taco Bell in Bend. The report—based on conversations with Nickerson, Swan, bystanders, and the victim—says Nickerson followed the woman down an alley in a white SUV and tried to run her over.

The report also describes Nickerson “yelling obscenities” at the woman from an open car window before she and her daughter jumped out of the SUV and attacked the alleged victim. Nickerson and Swan told police the victim had slept with Nickerson’s ex-boyfriend. She denied it and said she did not know the women.

According to a police report, a bystander told officers that Nickerson and Swan “definitely assaulted” the woman and “definitely hunted her down.”

Nickerson’s daughter, Swan, was arrested and charged with harassment and attempted fourth degree assault. During her arrest, according to Bend police reports, Nickerson “charged” at officers, saying, “If you arrest her, you’re gonna arrest me too, because I’m going to be next.”

Nickerson was not arrested or charged in connection with the assault.

Less than two months later, Nickerson was charged with assault and harassment for a separate incident involving a different victim. Court records do not include a police report or provide specifics about the charges, only that Nickerson caused “physical injury” to the victim, who was a woman in her early 40s.

Nickerson pleaded guilty to harassment in October 2023. Two weeks later, Deschutes County District Attorney Steve Gunnels’ office dismissed the assault charge.

Gunnels’ office said in a statement Oct. 23 that the prosecutor on the case did not believe she had enough evidence to win at trial.

Tung Yin, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, said it’s likely a plea bargain was reached in which Nickerson pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of harassment in exchange for the heavier assault charge being dropped. A bargain like this allows both the state and defendant to avoid going to trial, which can be lengthy, costly and have unpredictable outcomes.

Ultimately, Yin said, the application of the law comes down to subjective decisions.

“There is an enormous amount of discretion that the police and prosecutors use on a daily basis,” Yin said. “There are so many crimes that people commit, prosecutors just can't charge them all, so they have to pick and choose.”

Had Nickerson been convicted of misdemeanor assault in either case, she could not have legally purchased the shotgun that her son used to kill four people and injure two more. (The shooter was subsequently shot dead by a parent of two students at the elementary school.)

Although police officials have not discussed the shooter’s motive for the killings, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported earlier this week that investigators are looking into whether he was connected to extremist groups.

Whatever his motives, the shooter seems to align in many ways with the typical profile of a mass shooter: young, male, with a violent family background. According to the Violence Prevention Project, a nonprofit that collects and analyzes data on mass shooters, 68% of them have a history of childhood trauma or abuse.

Court records show the shooter had a chaotic childhood, with parents and caregivers accused or convicted of violence.

His father, Griffin J. John, age 47, struggled with addiction and mental health issues, and was largely absent. He has a felony conviction for assaulting a police officer and several misdemeanor assault and harassment charges. Since his felony conviction, he was charged for possessing illegal weapons three times. He is currently homeless in Astoria and had not seen his son in more than a year, as OregonLive.com first reported.

Nickerson herself was the victim of domestic violence, court records show. Throughout her son’s childhood, she was also embroiled in a lengthy custody battle involving two of her four children.

In 2014, when the shooter was 4, his mother’s then-boyfriend, Kyle Duncan, pleaded guilty to felony assault and coercion against Nickerson. The two convictions were vacated after Duncan completed a Domestic Violence Deferred Sentencing program. Three years later, in a different court matter, Nickerson wrote that she and Duncan “have been in a relationship for 5 years” and that he “helps care for all four of [my] children.”

Dr. Harold Schwartz, a professor of psychiatry at University of Connecticut School of Medicine who has researched school shooters, said he found common qualities among them.

“Isolated, angry, grievance-collecting people,” he said. “Loners who have struggled in home settings and in school and become obsessed with violence and murder…but there are many, many people who carry the worst of those characteristics and don’t become shooters,” he said.

What may distinguish those who act on their grievances with gun violence, Schwartz said, “in part lies in the failure to develop empathic capacity and a sense of social connectedness to others.”

Schwartz noted one distinguishing factor.

“One reason why so many people may lack these skills and don’t go on to commit murders is because they don’t have access to guns,” Schwartz said. “The single most significant difference is the availability of the weapon.”

Some outlets have reported that Nickerson gifted the gun to her son for his birthday this summer, but OJP has not verified that claim.

According to the National Institute of Justice’s mass shooting database, 77% of mass shooters legally accessed their firearms, while more than 80% of school shooters stole guns from family members.

Nickerson, Duncan and Swan did not return phone calls from the Oregon Journalism Project.