Tears, anger, support and outrage at emotional Bend City Council meeting
BEND, Ore. – The Bend City Council chambers were full of grieving residents and every form of emotion on display Wednesday evening, as councilors vowed to do all they can to address the severe safety threat to children. But a couple of frustrated, angry citizens called not just for armed officers at every school, but the mayor’s resignation for failing to fund them earlier.
“An unfathomable act ripped through our community,” councilors said in a joint statement read by Councilor Megan Perkins and Mayor Melanie Kebler, thanking the many people, organizations and businesses large and small who have stepped up to exemplify “a community that cares and takes care of each other.”
But the council also noted the “sense of safety shattered,” pointing to “a jagged scar that will fade, but will not disappear.”
They said they “will use all resources at our disposal. … Rest assured, we will act, and will act with conviction.”
Councilor Mike Riley was not alone in pleading for some patience on the part of residents who are requesting, even demanding swift changes.
He also noted that the Silver Rail attack was the 27th school shooting this year in which someone was killed or injured, and there have been 268 since 2018: “The vast majority of shooters or perpetrators were under 22 years old.”
Riley called for people across the country to “sometime in the next few days, look in the mirror and ask two questions: How did we get here, in the United States of America, where our children are killing our children in our schools with guns?” The second question he posed: “What are the practical actions we need to take to end this violence, as individuals and as a nation?”
Police Chief Mike Krantz summarized what’s been determined so far, noting there were 180 calls to 911 in the first hour after the initial call.
“How did we get here, in the United States of America, where our children are killing our children in our schools with guns?”
-Bend City Councilor Mike Riley
“The investigation is still actively locating and interviewing potential witnesses,” he said. “As you can imagine, with an event like this, where there's hundreds of people in a location, many people leave and flee, so we have to find and catch up to those folks and identify who, where, and then interview if they have any information that they could share. That process that takes a significant amount of time.”
Bend-La Pine Schools Superintendent Steve Cook, back in the council chambers where he met with federal, state and local officials earlier in the day. He said despite the understandable worries as all schools but Silver Rail reopened, overall attendance was within 3-4 percent of usual.
Before the visitors’ section, Krantz addressed the many calls for SROs in every school.
“Although I appreciate the sentiment, the reality is that that’s not something we can accomplish (now),” the police chief said. He said SROs “do a tremendous amount of service for the schools. The relationships they create are incredible and long-lasting. But what they’re not is a full-day, everyday security guard for school district locations. … I think we have a lot of room in the future to discuss and evaluate what the future looks like.”
Cook spoke about what the first day back in school was like, and acknowledged “there’s a lot of healing to do” for the Silver Rail community.
“I will tell you, they want to know what we’re going to do. We want to know what … our Silver Rail community wants us to do. And so we’re in the process right now of feeling that out.”
Cook also mentioned that law enforcement concluded their on-scene investigation and evidence collection, and “OSHA by law has to go into the building and give a stamp of approval. And we today received that building back. The next steps are to go in and clean and restore it to its original state, and then figure out what the next things will be. … A lot of decisions to be made, and I think we’ll be carrying on this conversation for years to come.”
School Board Chair Amy Tatom spoke of her time spent in Sandy Hook, and how Silver Rail is her neighborhood school, where her children added for a year before the COVID-19 closure.
Bend Chamber CEO Sara Odendahl, a mother of two students, fought back tears at times as she talked of the many businesses that have stepped up in so many ways “without anyone asking” and expressed “gratitude to everyone during a heartbreaking time for Bend.”
“Every parent should be outraged tonight.”
-Speaker at Bend City Council meeting
Carrie Karl, the city’s emergency manager, spoke about a wide variety of support that quickly arose, including a family assistance center that shared tears, connections and support: “There were kids hugging kids. They were happy to see each other, They were excited to be back together.”
The first citizen to speak, through online connection, said that “every parent should be outraged tonight,” and called for Kebler’s resignation.
She pointed out that a shared SRO was at another school when the attack happened. And she said a safety review after a 2024 loaded gun incident at Pilot Butte Middle School “identified the need for additional dedicated officers. The warnings were there, the staffing needs were documented, yet our children were still sharing officers.”
The woman also claimed Kebler promoted a book called “The End of Policing,” but after she finished speaking, Kebler replied, “I’ve never campaigned on ending policing systems – not true.”
The second online speaker said she’d heard “a troubling amount of self-congratulation and back-patting, ad nauseam. With all due respect, these responses are subpar and deeply inadequate, given the gravity of this tragedy.” She said there were programs and groups around the nation offering “hundreds of millions in potential funding. Were these opportunities pursued? Was there one application? No.”
‘Our children deserve action before tragedy, not self-congratulation or requests for patience afterward,” she said. “The time for studies that are ignored and questions left unanswered is over, as should be your term in office, Mayor Kebler,” she said. “The time for meaningful action and accountability leadership is now.”
Another speaker struck a much different tone: “I challenge our community to take this moment to build bridges with others. … If any individual is using this tragedy, now or in the near future, to discredit our current leadership, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
The next speaker said teachers and administrators should have the option to carry concealed weapons, to give “our brave teachers who will step in the way to protect their children the proper tools to defend themselves.”
Michelle Hill, whose two children were attending Silver Rail Elementary, said she, too survived a school shooting 25 years ago when a former student opened fire, but a full-time school resource officer quickly engaged the shooter. Five students were injured, but there were no deaths.
She said the officer’s “actions demonstrate that having a law enforcement officer immediately available on all Bend-La Pine campuses matters, when every second counts. We can’t prevent every tragedy, but we should not leave our children dependent on how quickly help can arrive from somewhere else.”
A similar tone came from a man who has a 6-year-old in first grade at Pine Ridge Elementary: “When will something happen? You ask for patience, but the kids were in school today, and not one measure has been taken to further protect them – not one. The answer can’t be that ‘we’ll figure it out later. … We can’t heal if our kids are still unsafe.”
Trey Heiss, who started a petition calling for quick changes, is the father of a Silver Rail second-grader: “Where this took place could not have been closer to her. … Another concerning fact is that the shooting was at 1 o’clock. You guys are giving us officers at pick-up and drop-off, with a massive gap in between. So all that is is a Band-aid on a broken arm.” He also expressed outage about a lack of quick planning for where students at Silver Rail – closed for the foreseeable future – will go.”
Kebler’s Nov. 3 election foe, challenger and first-time candidate Bernadette Strome, pointed to the call two years ago for four more SROs and four more patrol officers, along with another sergeant. “Yet leadership did not pass the funding to partner with the district on this very important issue.”
Another speaker took issue with the council “prioritizing tax dollars for pet projects over public safety,” and another parent said it’s keep to “keep guns out of people’s hands,” with such programs as gun buy-backs.
