Shooter kills 10 in Texas school
SANTA FE, Texas (AP) — A 17-year-old armed with a shotgun and a pistol opened fire at a Houston-area high school on Friday, killing 10 people, most of them students, according to authorities — the United States’ deadliest attack since the massacre in Florida last February that gave rise to a campaign by teens for gun control.
The suspected shooter, who was in custody on murder charges, also had explosive devices that were found in the school and nearby, said Gov. Greg Abbott, who called the assault “one of the most heinous attacks that we’ve ever seen in the history of Texas schools.”
Investigators offered no immediate motive for the shooting. The governor said the assailant intended to kill himself but gave up and told police that he did not have the courage to take his own life.
The deaths were all but certain to re-ignite the national debate over gun regulations, coming just three months after the Parkland, Florida, attack that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
“It’s been happening everywhere. I’ve always kind of felt like that eventually, it was going to happen here, too,” Santa Fe High School student Paige Curry told Houston television station KTRK.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t surprised. I was just scared,” Curry added.
Another 10 people were wounded at the school in Santa Fe, a city of about 13,000 people roughly 48 kilometers southeast of Houston, the governor said. The wounded included a school police officer who was the first to confront the suspect and got shot in the arm.
Hospitals reported treating a total of 14 people for injuries related to the shooting.
Zachary Muehe, a sophomore, was in his art class when he heard three loud booms. Muehe told The New York
Times that a student he knew from football was armed with a shotgun and was wearing a shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Born to Kill.”
“It was crazy watching him shoot and then pump. I remember seeing the shrapnel from the tables, whatever he hit. I remember seeing the shrapnel go past my face,” he told The Times.
The gunman yelled “Surprise!” before he started shooting, according to Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
The suspect was identified as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, who appeared to have no prior arrests or confrontations with law enforcement. He made his initial court appearance Friday evening by video link from the Galveston County Jail. A judge denied bond and took his application for a court-appointed attorney.
McCaul, a former federal prosecutor, said he expects the Justice Department to pursue additional charges, possibly involving weapons of mass destruction.
No Filipino hurt in shooting
No Filipino was hurt in the deadly shooting at the Santa Fe High School in Texas, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said yesterday, as he expressed sympathy to the United States government following the tragedy.
“We join the American people in grieving over the loss of so many young innocent lives in the school tragedy in Santa Fe, Texas,” Cayetano said.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims,” he said.
Consul General Adelio Angelito Cruz said his office immediately coordinated with members of the Filipino community following the shooting. He said none of the 1,994 Filipinos in Galveston County, where Santa Fe is located, was injured. – Janvic Mateo