Rhoam Summer, 5, is the youngest child killed in a US school shooting. His family is asking the world to draw for him

By Ray Sanchez, CNN

(CNN) — Rhoam Summer, the 5-year-old who was among the four victims fatally shot at an Oregon elementary school, is the youngest person ever killed in a deliberate mass attack at a US school, according to his family’s attorney and experts who track school shootings.

The littlest victim, his two classmates and a teacher were gunned down by a former student Thursday in a classroom dedicated to children with special needs at Silver Rail Elementary School in the central Oregon city of Bend.

It was 36th shooting in the United States this year on K-12 school grounds, according to CNN’s analysis of multiple databases, including the Gun Violence Archive.

“Sadly, and maybe callously, I’m not optimistic there are going to be any meaningful changes,” David Riedman, an Idaho State University assistant professor and data scientist who founded the K-12 Shooting Database, said of gun violence in US schools.

Rhoam is the youngest victim in 176 planned, gun-related attacks at schools since 1966 – in which 762 people were killed or wounded, including the four deaths at Silver Rail, according to Riedman’s research. Teacher Megan Lambert was killed along with Rhoam and two others, aged 8 and 11, police said. Reidman’s database includes incidents in which in a gun is fired, brandished or in which a bullet strikes K-12 school property.

School shootings in the US have declined for the past two years and the same is expected this year, according to Riedman’s research. In 2025, his data showed 235 school shootings compared to a peak of 352 in 2023.

Mass shootings at elementary schools are rare, experts say.

“It’s rarer than high schools because the children are younger, and most school shooters are between 13 and 17. So they’re usually either middle school or high school students, but there are a fair number at elementary schools, too. It’s about half are at high schools, and then about a quarter at elementary, and a quarter are at middle schools,” Riedman said.

A group of attorneys retained by Rhoam’s parents, in a statement, said the boy is the youngest person ever killed in a US school shooting.

“No child should have to experience or worry about violence in their school or parent fear for the safety of their kid in school,” one of the attorneys, Tim Williams, told CNN on Tuesday.

“You would expect it more to happen at a high school as opposed to a grade school. It’s just these poor parents that have really no inkling of caution because your kid’s entering kindergarten. You’re not going to think your school’s going to get shot up if your kid’s in kindergarten. I don’t even have words for it,” Williams added.

In a statement, Rhoam’s parents, Kelik and Lillian Summer, recalled his kindness.

“Anytime there were guests in our home, he would pull out cups to get everyone drinks or make sure everyone had a snack or make sure everyone had a stuffy to cuddle,” the parents said. “He wanted to share everything he had. His heart knew no limits and it grew with him every single day. We were so proud of who he was and who he was growing to be.”

His parents asked people to draw in his honor.

“Rhoam was not a child art prodigy, but he had the purest heart and he put love into every scribble, splash or paint, or smashed leaf he tried to shape,” they said.

Last Thursday, a 16-year-old shooter forced his way into the Oregon school by firing into the glass panes of an external set of doors, according to police. He was identified as Griffin J. John II, a former special needs student at the school, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said.

A teacher, who was not injured, threw her cellphone at the shooter, tackled him and tried to get the gun, the police chief said. Kaylub Giamanco, whose children attend the school, followed the suspect and shot him to death.

Becky Drury, a 54-year-old inclusion educational assistant from Bend, and Saylor Graham, 7, were injured in the shooting.

The two deadliest elementary school shootings in the US involved victims between the ages of six and 11. At the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, a former student on December 14, 2012, killed six adults and 20 children, who were 6 and 7 years old. In 2022, the 19 children killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, were between 9 and 11 years old.

“With Sandy Hook, it didn’t make a difference, much of a difference really,” James Alan Fox, a professor at Northeastern University who, with USA Today and The Associated Press, helped create the Mass Killing Database, said of stemming gun violence in schools.

“We had lots of young children killed in Uvalde. It didn’t make a difference. The fact this boy is the youngest, I guess you could say it will have an effect, but really no difference in substance in terms of five versus six, versus seven versus eight. And for the families, it doesn’t matter, obviously.”

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