Gunman took his time shooting students, staff

Officials say suspect lingered for half - hour, talked to some victims

Santa Fe, Texas — The suspect in the Texas school shooting began his attack by firing a shotgun through an art classroom door, shattering a glass pane and sending panicked students to the entryway to block him from getting inside, witnesses said.

Dmitrios Pagourtzis fired again through the wooden part of the door and fatally hit a student in the chest. He then lingered for nearly 30 minutes in a warren of four rooms, killing seven more students and two teachers before exchanging gunfire with police and surrendering, officials said.

Freshman Abel San Miguel saw his friend Chris Stone killed at the door. San Miguel got grazed in the stomach by another volley of shots. He and others survived by playing dead.

“We were on the ground, all piled up in random positions,” he said.

Galveston County Judge Mark Henry, the county’s chief administrator, said he did not think Friday’s attack was 30 minutes of constant shooting, and that assessment was consistent with other officials who said law enforcement contained the shooter quickly. But authorities did not release a detailed timeline to explain precisely how events unfolded.

Junior Breanna Quintanilla was in art class when she heard the shots and someone say, “If you all move, I’m going to shoot you all.”

The 17-year-old Pagourtzis walked in, pointed at one person and declared, “I’m going to kill you.” Then he fired.

“He then said that if the rest of us moved, he was going to shoot us,” Quintanilla said.

When Quintanilla tried to run out a back door, she realized Pagourtzis was aiming at her. He fired in her direction.

“He missed me,” she said. “But it went ahead and ricocheted and hit me in my right leg.” She was treated at a hospital and spoke with a brown bandage wrapped around her wound.

“It was a very scary thing,” Quintanilla said. “I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to make it back to my family.”

In their first statement since the massacre, Pagourtzis’ family said Saturday that the bloodshed “seems incompatible with the boy we love.”

“We are as shocked and confused as anyone else by these events,” said the statement, which offered prayers and condolences to the victims.

Relatives said they remained “mostly in the dark about the specifics” of the attack and shared “the public’s hunger for answers.”

Pagourtzis’ attorney, Nicholas Poehl, said he was investigating whether the suspect endured any “teacher-on-student” bullying after reading reports of his client being mistreated by football coaches.

In an online statement, the school district said it investigated the accusations and “confirmed that these reports were untrue.”

Poehl said that there was no history of mental health issues with his client, though there may be “some indications of family history.” He said it was too early to elaborate.

Zach Wofford, a senior, said he was in his agricultural shop class when he heard gunfire from the art classroom across the hall. He said substitute teacher Chris West went into the hall to investigate and pulled a fire alarm.

“He saved many people today,” Wofford said of West.

Dmitrios Pagourtzis’ attorney, Nicholas Poehl, said he was investigating whether the suspect endured any “teacher-on-student” bullying after reading reports of his client being mistreated by football coaches.