The father of the teen who killed four people at a Bend elementary school last week is homeless in Astoria, where he’s been living a difficult life for several years amid drug overdoses and intermittent run-ins with law enforcement.
“I’m going through a lot right now,” Griffin J. John, 47, said during a brief conversation Tuesday morning at his campsite in a wooded area about 2 miles outside downtown Astoria. He said he had a lot to do and asked two journalists to leave.
Astoria police notified John on Friday evening that his 16-year-old son, Griffin J. John II, had fatally shot three students and a teacher at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend. The teen also shot another teacher and student, who are recovering.
A teacher disrupted the attack, wrestling with the shooter until a parent arrived and fatally shot the teen, just a few minutes after the attack began.
It’s not clear John had much contact with his son. Court records show that the Bend shooter’s mother lived in the Newport area before the couple divorced in 2014 after nearly five years of marriage, when their son was 3. John moved to Astoria prior to the divorce, court records show, but ultimately ended up living outdoors in and around the small city of a little more than 10,000 residents near the mouth of the Columbia River.
The divorce filing indicates that John and the shooter’s mother began living apart in 2012, and the shooter’s mother and her son moved to Bend around that time. The filing describes John as a fisherman who “is out at sea and in different states (for) long periods of time.” The mother wrote in an affidavit that John “has not asked to see his child in over two years.”
In 2011 — before his divorce, and when his son was an infant — he was convicted of harassment and attempting to commit a felony, court records show. Oregon’s online courts record system doesn’t specify what the attempted felony was.
The court awarded John one weekend a month of parenting time; Astoria police say that he told them on Friday that he hadn’t seen his son in about a year.
John has been a familiar figure on the streets of Astoria for over a decade, spending some time living in a van before moving to campsites in the woods near town. He has run astray of the law several times in Clatsop County over the last nine years and police Chief Stacy Kelly said officers had revived John after at least two drug overdoses.
“He has a tendency to be volatile at times,” Kelly said. But the chief said John also has a degree of self-awareness and alerts others when he is becoming agitated and that most of his interactions with police are related to minor infractions, like illegal camping.
Kelly added that John appeared distraught when police officers broke the news about his son.
He was most recently convicted of being a felon in possession of a weapon in 2023, after an Astoria police officer arresting him for trespassing discovered that he was armed with a 7-inch dagger, court records show.
In 2022 he was convicted of discarding waste within 100 feet of state waters, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.
In 2019, he racked up two more convictions for having a switchblade, and in 2017 he was convicted of fourth-degree assault, records show.
His campsite in Astoria is at the base of a steep incline, amid ferns and towering spruce and hemlock. A scooter, bike, two lawnmowers, suitcases, plastic storage bins and a green bottle-drop bag are arrayed among the pine needles on the hillside, above a gray tent.
Authorities in Astoria posted John’s campsite with a bright yellow removal notice Monday, indicating they plan to clean it up later this week.
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