Had firefight with officers, then gave up
WHEN WILL WE TRY TO STOP IT?
THE TEEN suspect charged with slaughtering 10 people at his Texas high school swapped gunfire with arriving police before surrendering meekly, officials said Saturday.
Gunman Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, “sort of fell to the ground” and just gave himself up, said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), head of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Pagourtzis’ submissive choice stood in contrast with his plan to commit suicide after opening fire at Santa Fe High School with a shotgun and a .38-caliber handgun that belonged to his dad.
“He admitted to investigators that he intended on killing himself, but he chickened out at the last minute,” Galveston County Magistrate Mark Henry told the Daily News.
The jailed suspect (photo) collapsed outside the school’s art lab, where his ex-girlfriend was reportedly among the students shot. Her condition remained unclear.
Students at the high schoolturned-crime scene/memorial were permitted back inside Saturday to collect items they left behind when fleeing the shooter 24 hours earlier.
The shooting suspect’s motive remained a mystery Saturday, although court documents indicated that he wanted the story of what happened told by students whose lives were spared by the gunman.
The Pagourtzis family issued a statement saying, “While we remain mostly in the dark about the specifics of yesterday’s tragedy, what we have learned from media reports seems incompatible with the boy we love.”
Henry said there was “a lot of firepower” exchanged between law enforcement and the trench coat-clad shooter before the nightmarish school assault came to a finish.
A second person of interest held by police in the slaughter “was acting odd,” Henry said. “He was found in the building, locked in a closet.”