Bend Shooter's Mother Bought Shotgun in August After 2023 Assault Charges Were Dropped

A week after four people were killed at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, investigators are tracing how a 16-year-old obtained the shotgun used in the attack. Law enforcement officials say the weapon belonged to his mother, Shauntai Nickerson, who purchased a Mossberg Maverick 88 pump-action shotgun in August under her own name. The firearm typically sells for $250 to $300. Officials have not disclosed the retailer. Oregon law permits 16- and 17-year-olds to possess rifles and shotguns when a parent or guardian provides them.

Oregon prohibits firearm sales to anyone convicted of a violent misdemeanor, including assault, within the preceding four years. Nickerson faced two assault accusations in 2023, but neither case produced an assault conviction, so the restriction never applied. A conviction in either matter would have barred her purchase.

The first incident appears in a Bend police report dated January 2023. The report states that Nickerson, then 40, and her daughter Ariel Swan, then 19, confronted a woman outside a Taco Bell. Nickerson allegedly followed the woman down an alley in a white SUV and attempted to strike her with the vehicle before shouting from the window. Both women then exited the vehicle and attacked her, according to the report. Swan was arrested and charged with harassment and attempted fourth-degree assault. Police reports say Nickerson "charged" at officers during the arrest but was neither arrested nor charged. A bystander told officers the pair "definitely hunted her down."

Less than two months later, Nickerson faced assault and harassment charges in a separate case involving a different victim, a woman in her early 40s. Court records provide no police report and note only that she caused "physical injury." She pleaded guilty to harassment in October 2023. Two weeks afterward, the Deschutes County District Attorney's office dismissed the assault charge. An Oct. 23 statement from the office said the prosecutor did not believe the evidence was sufficient to prevail at trial. Tung Yin, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, said the outcome likely reflected a plea bargain that spared both sides a trial. "There are so many crimes that people commit, prosecutors just can't charge them all, so they have to pick and choose," Yin said.

Police have not discussed a motive. Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that investigators are examining possible links to extremist groups. Court records show the shooter's father, Griffin J. John, 47, carries a felony conviction for assaulting a police officer along with misdemeanor assault and harassment charges, and is homeless in Astoria. Nickerson was a victim of domestic violence; her then-boyfriend Kyle Duncan pleaded guilty in 2014 to felony assault and coercion against her, convictions later vacated after he completed a deferred sentencing program. Dr. Harold Schwartz, a University of Connecticut psychiatry professor who has studied school shooters, said weapon access separates those who act from those who share traits like isolation and anger. National Institute of Justice data show 77% of mass shooters legally accessed their firearms, and more than 80% of school shooters took guns from family members. Nickerson, Duncan and Swan did not return calls seeking comment.