Murdered school pupil ‘rejected’ killer days before gun massacre

The mother of one of the ten people killed at a Texas high school said her daughter recently rejected the advances of the 17-year-old charged in the shootings.

Sadie Rodriguez said her daughter Shana Fisher had made clear that she was not interested in Dimitrios Pagourtzis in a statement that offers a possible motive for the violent tragedy.

“He continued to get more aggressive,” Ms Rodriguez said in an interview carried out through Facebook. “She finally stood up to him and embarrassed him.”

The incident took place one week before the shooting, Ms Rodriguez said. Police have not yet said what might have motivated the attack.

Asked about Ms Rodriguez’s allegation, a lawyer for the Pagourtzis’s family said he had not heard about any such interaction between Pagourtzis and any of the victims and could not comment. Lawyer Nicholas Poehl said: “That’s news to me.”

Mr Poehl had earlier issued a statement from the family saying they were “as shocked and confused as anyone else by these events that occurred” and asked for privacy.

“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,” the family said.

Representatives of the school district did not immediately respond to questions about Ms Rodriguez’s comments.

A junior at Santa Fe High, Pagourtzis hid a shotgun and a handgun under his trenchcoat before opening fire in an art class on Friday.

The FBI announced they had taken the lead in the joint investigation at the request of local authorities.

“He gave a statement admitting to shooting multiple people inside the Santa Fe High School with the intent on killing people,” the police affidavit said. “Dimitrios advised he did not shoot students he did like, so he could have his story told.” The attack ended whenpagourtziswalkedoutof a classroom and surrendered to police.

Authorities say Pagourtzis planned the killings, carried out with weapons owned by his father. Pagourtzis allegedly wrote about his intention to carry out the attack.

Governor Greg Abbott said Pagourtzis had planned to kill himself after the shooting but the shooter told police “he didn’t have the courage to commit the suicide”. Mr Abbott said Pagourtzis had not previously been in trouble. “The red-flag warnings were either non-existent or very imperceptible,” he said.

Some Santa Fe High pupils indicated Pagourtzis may have had one or more targets, though details were not clear yesterday.