10 killed in high school shooting
Student held in ‘heinous attack’; explosives found
SANTAFE, TEXAS • Ten people were killed in a shooting Friday morning at a high school here in southeast Texas, and a student was taken into custody amid the carnage, authorities said. Police were also investigating explosive devices found at the school and away from the campus.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, said that in addition to the 10 people slain, another 10 people were injured in the rampage at Santa Fe High School, about 54 kilometres southeast of Houston.
Most of those killed in the school were students, said Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, who said the shooting occurred shortly before 8 a.m.
Gonzalez said one male student was taken into custody, and he said a second person — another student described as “a person of interest” — was being detained and questioned.
Abbott called the shooting in Santa Fe “one of the most heinous attacks that we’ve ever seen in the history of Texas schools.”
The attacker was wielding two guns — a shotgun and a .38 revolver — both of which were owned by his father, according to Abbott. He said it was unclear if the gunman’s father knew his son had taken the weapons.
The suspected shooter has been identified as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, according to police officials, who asked not to be identified discussing the ongoing investigation. These officials added that some of the explosives were found at his family home.
After the shooting, police and federal authorities could be seen blocking off an address linked to Pagourtzis’s mother and were going in and out of the home for hours.
Abbott said that the shooter, who was being held by the Santa Fe police, had journals documenting his thoughts on both his computer and his cellphone. The shooter said “not only did he want to commit the shooting, but he wanted to commit suicide after,” Abbott said.
Instead, he said, the attacker gave himself up to police, becoming a rare mass shooter taken into custody after.
Abbott said that unlike previous mass shootings in Sutherland Springs and Parkland — both of which occurred after the attackers had repeated encounters with law enforcement and red flags — the Santa Fe attacker did not appear to leave behind the usual warning signs that precede mass shootings.