Gunman, 17, yelled ‘Surprise’ before he killed 9 classmates

A BOY of 17 killed ten people including nine fellow pupils in a shooting rampage at his school in Texas yesterday.

Witnesses said the heavily armed teenager – named by police as Dimitrios Pagourtzis – attacked at Santa Fe High School just after 7.30am when he burst into an art lesson shouting, ‘Surprise!’ before opening fire with a shotgun.

Others were shot as they fled classrooms after a fire alarm was set off. The gunman tried to cause more bloodshed by leaving pipe bombs around the school.

One of the dead was a teacher and ten others were injured, including two police officers, one of whom was critically hurt.

The attacker was reportedly captured unharmed. Another student was arrested as investigators believe he may have been involved.

Officials said the killer was armed with an AR15-style assault rifle, a pistol, a shotgun and pipe bombs.

The atrocity was the 22nd school shooting in the US this year, and the deadliest since an attack on a school in Parkland, Florida, in February, which left 17 dead. President Donald Trump called the latest incident an ‘absolutely horrific attack’, adding: ‘This has been going on too long in our country.’

The gunman struck as pupils were sitting down for their first class of the day. Trey Lemley, 17, was in a ground floor art room when the shooter walked in. He told his family he barricaded himself in one of the room’s two closets. When he left, he saw three bodies and pools of blood.

Liberty Wheeler, 14, heard five shots ring out. Her teacher told pupils to run to a storage room, where they hid for 45 minutes before police escorted them out. Custody: Dimitrios Pagourtzis, above Left: Pupil Dakota Shrader weeps with her mother She said: ‘ You could smell the gunpowder … We were all scared.’

Pupil Dakota Shrader said she heard alarms and went outside, waiting for an all- clear as they thought it was a fire drill. Then she heard gunshots and screams of ‘Run, run!’

An official told the Houston Chronicle that police ‘encountered a bloody mess in the school’.

A law enforcement spokesman identified the person in custody as 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis.

A few weeks ago, he posted pictures on Facebook of a custommade T- shirt bearing the words ‘born to kill’ and a coat decorated with a reproduction Nazi Iron Cross and a Soviet red star.

Police said the gunman had taken weapons from his father.

The killer faces ‘capital murder’ charges. The minimum age for the death penalty in Texas is 17.