Texas school shooting suspect spared people he liked so they could tell his story, documents claim
Updated
The 17-year-old student who authorities say killed 10 people when he opened fire in an art class in his Texas high school appeared "weirdly non-emotional" after the rampage, one of his lawyers has revealed.
Key points:
- Dimitrios Pagourtzis, has been charged with capital murder and is being held without bail in Santa Fe, Texas
- He spared people he liked so he could have his side of the story told, charging papers show
- His family says the bloodshed "seems incompatible with the boy we love"
The teenager, identified by law enforcement as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, has been charged with capital murder and is being held without bail in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities said he went on a shooting spree shortly before 8:00am on Friday (local time).
The suspect 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.
Mr Pagourtzis fired again through the wooden part of the door and fatally hit a student in the chest. He then lingered for about 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.
In addition to 10 fatalities, the gunman wounded at least 13 people, with two of them in critical condition. One of those in critical condition was one of the two school resource officers who engaged the shooter before his surrender.
Nicholas Poehl, one of two lawyers hired by the suspect's parents to represent him, told Reuters he had spent a total of one hour with Mr Pagourtzis on Friday night and Saturday morning.
"He's very emotional and weirdly non-emotional," the attorney said when asked to describe his client's state of mind.
"There are aspects of it he understands and there are aspects he doesn't understand."
As the shooting unfolded, Mr Pagourtzis spared people he liked so he could have his side of the story told, a charging document showed, but there was no immediate indication why he apparently targeted the art class.
Suspect's family 'saddened and dismayed'
In their first statement since the massacre, Mr Pagourtzis's family said on Saturday that the bloodshed "seems incompatible with the boy we love".
Mr Pagourtzis's family said in a statement they were "saddened and dismayed" by the shooting and "as shocked as anyone else" by the events. They said they were cooperating with authorities.
Investigators had seen a photo of a T-shirt on the suspect's Facebook page that read "Born to Kill," and authorities were examining his journal, Texas Governor Greg Abbott told reporters. But there were no outward signs he had been planning an attack.
Mr Pagourtzis waived his right to remain silent and made a statement to authorities admitting to the shooting, according to an affidavit ahead of his arrest.
Asked if Mr Pagourtzis had provided authorities with information about the shootings, Mr Poehl said: "Honestly because of his emotional state, I don't have a lot on that."
Santa Fe High School, south-east of Houston, became the scene of the fourth-deadliest mass shooting at a US public school in modern history, joining a long list of campuses where students and faculty have fallen victim to gunfire.
The Texas rampage again stoked the nation's long-running debate over gun ownership, three months after a student-led gun control movement emerged from a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 teens and educators dead.
Students and faculty, bussed on to campus in small groups, were allowed to enter the high school on Saturday to retrieve belongings, though investigators closed off a section of the grounds. Police kept reporters about 91 metres away.
All schools in the Santa Fe school district will remain closed on Monday and Tuesday, officials said.
In a letter to parents dated Friday but posted on the district's website on Saturday, superintendent Leigh Wall said eight of the dead were students and two were teachers. Authorities had earlier said that nine students and one teacher were killed.
A vigil was held on Friday night for the victims, who have not been officially identified.
"This will bring us closer together — hopefully, a positive impact from something negative," said Clayton George, 16, who played football with the suspect.
The Pakistan Embassy in Washington DC identified one of the victims on Twitter as Sabika Sheikh, a Pakistani exchange student, while the brother-in-law of Cynthia Tisdale, a teacher's aide and mother of four, said on Facebook she was killed in the attack.
'Quiet loner' in a trench-coat
Classmates at the school of some 1,460 students described Mr Pagourtzis as a quiet loner who played on the football team. On Friday, they said he wore a trench coat to school on a day when temperatures topped 32 degrees Celsius.
Mr Abbott told reporters that Mr Pagourtzis obtained firearms from his father, who had likely acquired them legally, and also left behind explosive devices.
He said Pagourtzis wanted to commit suicide, citing the suspect's journals, but did not have the courage to do so.
Some aspects of the shooting had echoes of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999.
The two teenaged killers in that incident wore trench coats, used shotguns and planted improvised explosives, killing 10 before committing suicide themselves.
It was the second mass shooting in Texas in less than seven months.
A man armed with an assault rifle shot dead 26 people during Sunday prayers at a rural church last November.
Reuters/AP
Topics: murder-and-manslaughter, crime, law-crime-and-justice, united-states
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