‘I’VE ALWAYS KIND OF FELT LIKE EVENTUALLY IT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN HERE, TOO’
17-year-old taken into custody after latest rampage, this one in Texas
Three months after a shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, left 17 people dead and set off a debate about gun control, a gunman opened fire early Friday at Santa Fe High School in Texas, killing nine students and an adult and injuring 10 others. A 17-year-old suspect, said to be suicidal, was taken into custody, but not before explosive devices had been planted on and off campus. Authorities said he faces capital murder charges.
SANTA FE, Texas — A shotgun-toting teenager opened fire at a Texas high school Friday, killing at least 10 people and leaving a cache of explosives in and around the building.
Nine students and one adult were killed at Santa Fe High School in the attack that erupted before classes began, a law enforcement official not authorized to comment publicly told USA TODAY. The suspect was later taken into custody.
Ten other people were wounded, Gov. Greg Abbott said during an afternoon news conference.
“We come together today as we deal with one of the most heinous attacks that we’ve ever seen in the history of Texas schools,” Abbott said. “It’s impossible to describe the magnitude of the evil of someone who would attack innocent children in a school.”
The shooting was the worst since Feb. 14, when a former student killed 17 people at a Florida high school and ignited a national debate on gun control.
The official said multiple pipebomb-type explosives were recovered at the school, but investigators were still going through the building. Authorities also found a variety of other
explosives while searching a vehicle and home, including a Molotov cocktail, Abbott said.
Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, was arrested and charged with capital murder and aggravated assault of a peace officer. He kept a journal on his computer and a cell phone that detailed the plans for an attack, Abbott said, adding that Pagourtzis also hoped to take his own life after the shooting but instead gave himself up.
It’s not USA TODAY’s policy to identify minors charged with crimes. Due to the magnitude of the event and the fact the suspect could be charged as an adult, USA TODAY has decided to identify the suspect.
Pagourtzis was armed with a shotgun and a .38-caliber pistol, Abbott said. The guns were owned by the boy’s father, Abbott said.
Investigators were working on search warrants for two residences and a car, but were hampered by concerns about the potential for more explosives, Abbott said.
“They want to make sure they can enter them without anybody being harmed,” Abbott said.
The school had two police officers on duty, and one was critically wounded in the shoot-out, according to Steven McGraw, director of the state Department of Public Safety. A state trooper also engaged the gunman, McGraw said.
“We know that because they were willing to run into that a building and engage them right now, other lives were saved,” McGraw said.
At least one other person was in custody, but the official believed the person was not believed to be a suspect.
After explosives were found at the school and off campus, police and the Santa Fe Independent School District urged people to report any suspicious items found around town.
First responders received the first calls about a gunman opening fire in a classroom at 7:32 a.m. Witnesses fleeing the school described chaos as they jumped over fences and ran to nearby businesses.
“I was shaking, my anxiety was bad,” Megan Hunter said after fleeing her classroom. “I don’t even know what to think.”
The fire alarm went off during the attack, adding a level of confusion for those at the school and for first responders.
It’s unclear whether a student, teacher or the gunman pulled it. Some students told reporters that students pulled the alarm after seeing the gunman, and one said a former Marine who is a teacher at the school pulled the alarm.
But Tyler Turner, a student at the school, told Fox News that the gunman pulled the alarm. Turner said a few of his friends walked past the gunman, who looked suspicious.
“He pulled the fire alarm so we all went outside, and then we heard three shots,” Turner said.
The suspect in the Florida high school shooting in February also was accused of pulling the fire alarm, allowing him to mow down students fleeing the school.
For some students inside, the fire alarm made them think the emergency wasn’t as dire.
Branden Auzston, an 11th grader, heard the alarm and thought it may have been a fire since they had a drill two weeks ago.
“We go outside and we were told to get in the grass,” Auzston said. “Then I see my teacher and she screamed ‘Just run!’ ”
Eight hours after the shots were fired, Auzston and his girlfriend, Daisy Sullivan, gathered at a parking lot where parents and guardians were being reunited with students.
Leila Butler, another student, told CNN she didn’t hear gunshots, but just the fire alarm that prompted the evacuation.
“We’re all really just devastated that such a tragedy could happen in our small town,” she said. in the context of the U.S. making a “bold and fundamental change” in policy toward North Korea. Kim sought to “open up a new chapter for the development of relations with the countries friendly toward us, unbound to the past,” the foreign ministry said. If the North is faced with ongoing “U.S. hostile policy,” that would result “in further expanding and building up of the (North’s) nuclear arsenal,” it said. The statement showed North Korea trying “to engage with the United States on peace talks rather than on nuclear talks,” Scott Snyder, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote at the time.
2018: After meeting with Moon and releasing three American detainees last week, North Korea agreed to a meeting with Trump on June 12 in Singapore to discuss the nuclear issue. A week later, a North Korean official announced that the meeting may be nixed if it is going to be pushed into giving up its nuclear arsenal.