Ten dead in Texas school shooting
Ten people, mostly students, were killed when a teenage classmate armed with a shotgun and a revolver opened fire in a Texas high school on Friday, the latest deadly school shooting to hit the United States.
The gunman, arrested on murder charges, was identified as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, a 17-year-old junior at Santa Fe High School. He is being held on capital murder charges, meaning he could face the death penalty, AFP reported.
Governor Greg Abbott said 10 people died and another 10 were wounded in “one of the most heinous attacks that we’ve ever seen in the history of Texas schools.”
“Nothing can prepare a parent for the loss of a child,” Abbott told reporters in Santa Fe, located about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southeast of Houston.
Abbott said the gunman apparently carried out the attack with a shotgun and a .38 revolver that were legally owned by his father.
The Houston Chronicle said Pagourtzis also threw pipe bombs into a classroom at the start of the school day.
At dusk, hundreds of people, including many children, turned out for a candlelight vigil as the community sought to cope with the tragedy.
Abbott said searches were being conducted at two residences and “explosive devices” had been found, including a “CO2 device” and a Molotov cocktail.
He said journal entries by the gunman suggested he wanted to commit suicide but “he gave himself up.”
Abbott said there were no “warning signs” about the suspect, who had no criminal history, although he did post a picture on his Facebook page of a Tshirt with the words “Born to Kill” on it.
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said most victims were students.
Area hospitals said two victims were in critical condition. One of the wounded was a police officer, John Barnes, who engaged the gunman and was shot in the elbow, officials said.
The shooting was the latest in what has become an all-too-familiar situation in American schools, where gun violence has become a part of everyday life, part of a broader toll taken by firearms which are responsible for more than 30,000 gun-related deaths annually in the US.
Earlier this year, 17 people were killed at Marjory Douglas Stoneman High School in Parkland, Florida, -- a massacre that prompted survivors to launch a grassroots campaign against gun violence that led to the largest gun reform rallies in nearly two decades.
Friday’s was the second mass shooting in Texas in six months.
Twenty-six people were killed in a Texas church in November 2017 by a 26-year-old Air Force veteran.
US President Donald Trump expressed “sadness and heartbreak” over the shooting and ordered US flags to fly at half-staff for the next few days.
Trump, who has previously shied away from gun control and proposed arming teachers, said he was “determined to do everything in our power to protect our students, secure our schools and to keep weapons out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselves and to others.”