Gunman blasted through door, lingered for about 30 minutes
The suspect in the Texas school shooting 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, witnesses said.
Dmitrios 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. Freshman Abel San Miguel saw his friend Chris Stone killed at the door. San Miguel was grazed on the left shoulder by another volley of shots. He and others survived by playing dead.
"We were on the ground, all piled up in random positions," he said. Galveston County Judge Mark Henry, the county's chief administrator, said he did not think Friday's attack was 30 minutes of constant shooting, and that assessment was consistent with other officials who said law enforcement contained the shooter quickly. But authorities did not release a detailed timeline to explain precisely how events unfolded. Junior Breanna Quintanilla was in art class when she heard the shots and someone say, "If you all move, I'm going to shoot you all." The 17-year-old Pagourtzis walked in, pointed at one person and declared, "I'm going to kill you." Then he fired.
"He then said that if the rest of us moved, he was going to shoot us," Quintanilla said. When Quintanilla tried to run out a back door, she realized Pagourtzis was aiming at her. He fired in her direction."He missed me," she said.