Confession but no motive in deadly school shooting
SANTA FE, Texas — The 17-year-old student charged with killing 10 people when he opened fire in an art class at 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 police as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, has been charged with capital murder and is being held without bail in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities said he went on a shooting spree shortly before 8 am on Friday.
In addition to 10 fatalities, the gunman wounded at least 13 people, with two of them in critical condition.
Nicholas Poehl, one of two lawyers hired by the suspect’s parents to represent him, said he spent an 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 showed.
While authorities have given no indication why he apparently targeted the art class, a mother of one of the victims told the Los Angeles Times that her daughter, Shana Fisher, 16, had rejected four months of aggressive advances from Pagourtzis.
Fisher finally stood up to him and embarrassed him in class, the newspaper quoted her mother Sadie Rodriguez as writing in a private message to the Times.
“A week later he opens fire on everyone he didn’t like,” she said. “Shana being the first one.”
Rodriguez did not say how she knew her daughter was the first victim, according to the newspaper.
Pagourtzis’ family said in a statement they were “saddened and dismayed” by the shooting and “as shocked as anyone else” by the events. They said they are cooperating with authorities.
“While we remain mostly in the dark about the specifics of (Friday’s) tragedy, what we have learned from media reports seems incompatible with the boy we love,” the family said.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott told reporters there were no outward signs he had been planning an attack.
Witnesses said the suspect began his attack by firing a shotgun through an art classroom door, shattering a glass pane and sending panicked students to the entryway to block him from getting inside.
Pagourtzis fired again through the wooden part of the door and fatally hit a student in the chest. He then lingered for about 30 minutes in a warren of four rooms, killing seven more students and two teachers before exchanging gunfire with police and surrendering, officials said.
Students on Saturday paid tribute to the victims at an evening baseball game.