Shooting survivors face a ‘spiritual war zone’
Students from Texas school come together in ceremony to be with friends, family and God
SANTA FE, TEXAS — The graduating seniors of a Houston-area high school where 10 people were gunned down last week have had a terrifying insight into the world that awaits them, a district attorney prosecuting the capital murder case said at a ceremony in a packed church sanctuary.
Eight students and two substitute teachers were fatally shot Friday at Santa Fe High School. Jack Roady, the Galveston County district attorney, said the case presented the most deaths in one crime that he has ever faced. A 17-year-old suspect has been jailed on capital murder charges.
“You are entering into a war zone in this world, and it’s a spiritual war zone,” Roady said in his address at the event Sunday intended to celebrate the students’ graduation.
This deeply religious community came together Sunday for prayer services at local churches and a traditional end-of-school baccalaureate service that acknowledged the pain wracking Santa Fe, a town of 13,000 people. Mourners also gathered at a Houston-area mosque to remember the life of a slain exchange student from Pakistan.
The baccalaureate is typically a religious celebration to honour school graduates. After Friday’s shooting, it was moved from the high school auditorium to nearby Arcadia First Baptist Church. Every pew in the church was filled, and folding chairs against the wall provided overflow seating. When “Pomp and Circumstance” played, the seniors filed in wearing green caps and gowns. Most had serious looks on their faces, though a few smiled at people they recognized in the crowd.
Speaker and Santa Fe graduate Aaron Chenoweth gave a short testimony about trials and tribulations this graduating class faced. He called on the community’s faith in God.
“If you give God the glory, you will always find comfort and love,” he said, receiving a standing ovation.
Roady told the students that they were “suffering in ways that no one else can understand.” He called on them to draw closer to their faith and each other.
Todd Penick, a graduating senior who is planning to attend Texas State University, said last year’s baccalaureate was attended by around 25 people. This year’s, which drew around 200 people, was a chance to reunite with his friends and classmates.
“Nobody is going to be OK in a couple of days,” he said. “Nobody can look you in the eyes and tell you it’s OK. But we’re going to be OK because everyone is so unified.”
He added: “Family and friends and God, that’s what’s going to get us through this.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of people attended a service held by Houston’s Muslim community for Sabika Sheikh, a 17-year-old exchange student from Pakistan, who had talked about one day becoming a diplomat.
Her host mother, Joleen Cogburn, recalled asking Sheikh why she came to study in the U.S. She said she wanted to learn American culture and to share Pakistani culture with Americans.
“And I want us to come together and unite,” she told Cogburn. “I don’t know if they know us the way they should.”
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Sheikh continues to be a diplomat “because even in her death, she is pulling the relationships between Pakistan and the United States, specifically the Houston area, even closer.”
In their first statement since the massacre, the family of the suspect, Dimitrios Pagourtzis, said Saturday that the bloodshed “seems incompatible with the boy we love.”
“We are as shocked and confused as anyone else by these events,” the family said in the statement, which offered prayers and condolences to the victims.
Relatives said they remained “mostly in the dark about the specifics” of the attack and shared “the public’s hunger for answers.”