Texas shooting suspect seems ‘weirdly non-emotional,’ lawyer says

SANTA FE, Texas, (Reuters) - The 17-year-old student who authorities said killed 10 people when he opened fire in an art class in his Houston-area high school appeared “weirdly nonemotional” on the morning after the rampage, one of his lawyers said on Saturday.

The teenager, identified by law enforcement as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, has been charged with capital murder and is being held without bail in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities said he opened fire shortly before 8 a.m. on Friday.

In addition to 10 fatalities, the shooter wounded at least 13 people, with two of them in critical condition. One of those in critical condition was one of the two school resource officers who engaged the shooter before his surrender.

Nicholas Poehl, one of two lawyers hired by the suspect’s parents to represent him, told Reuters he had spent a total of one hour with Pagourtzis on Friday night and Saturday morning.

“He’s very emotional and weirdly nonemotional,” the attorney said when asked to describe his client’s state of mind. “There are aspects of it he understands and there are aspects he doesn’t understand.”

As the shooting unfolded, Pagourtzis spared people he liked so he could have his side of the story told, a charging document seen by Reuters showed, but there was no immediate indication why he apparently targeted the art class.

Investigators had seen a T-shirt on the suspect’s Facebook page that read “Born to Kill,” and authorities were examining his journal, Texas Governor Greg Abbott told reporters. But there were no outward signs he had been planning an attack.