(CNN) Ten people were killed and 10 others were injured in a shooting Friday morning at a high school in the southeastern Texas city of Santa Fe, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott confirmed.
Authorities have said two people have been detained in the shooting at Santa Fe High School. The Galveston County Sheriff's Office identified the shooter as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, who is 17.
He is in jail, accused of capital murder, the sheriff's office said.
The alleged shooter used a shotgun and a revolver that were legally owned by his father, Abbott told reporters. Two school resource officers were on the campus and confronted the shooter "early on in the process," Abbott said.
He said the investigators have found journals on a computer and cell phone owned by the suspect. The boy indicated he wanted to take his own life after the shooting, the governor said at a news conference.
The governor offered his sympathies to the victims then called for lawmakers and others to come together to prevent more tragedies.
"We need to do more than just pray for the victims and their families. It's time in Texas that we take action to step up and make sure this tragedy is never repeated ever again," Abbott said.
Early morning attack
Gunfire erupted at the school, about 20 miles outside Galveston, not long after classes began around 7:30 a.m. CT, officials said. Authorities later found explosive devices -- including pipe bombs and pressure cookers -- in and near the school, the law enforcement official said.
A male suspect, believed to be a student, has been arrested in the shooting, and a second person -- also believed to be a student -- has been detained as well, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said.
The male that Gonzalez described as a suspect is injured, a law enforcement official said on condition of anonymity.
Investigators believe that the second person, an 18-year-old, may be an accomplice but not a shooter, a law enforcement official said.
Two law enforcement officers are among the injured, according to a law enforcement source.
One man is in critical condition with a gunshot wound in one of his arms, said David Marshall, chief nursing officer for University of Texas Medical Branch hospital.
This is the 22nd US school shooting since the beginning of the year, and the third instance in eight days in which a gunman was on a school campus.
Witnesses described students running from the school as they heard gunshots; they also described hearing an alarm at the school, though the sequence of events wasn't immediately clear.
Authorities found explosive devices in the high school and in adjacent areas, said Walter Braun, Santa Fe Independent School District police chief. It wasn't immediately clear if any had exploded.
Santa Fe High School junior Guadalupe Sanchez, 16, cries in the arms of her mother, Elida Sanchez, after reuniting with her at a meeting point at a nearby fitness center after Friday's shooting.
Because the devices were found, Braun urged people in the city of about 13,000 people to "not touch any items that look out of place, and call 911" if they see something suspicious.
Investigators Friday afternoon were searching a trailer where they believe the devices were assembled, a law enforcement source said.
The school has been cleared of all students and staff, who have been directed to a nearby facility to reunite with their families, Braun said.
Witness: Shooter fired gun in an art class
An armed person walked into an art class at the school and began firing what looked like a shotgun, a witness told CNN affiliate KTRK
The witness told KTRK she saw a girl shot in the leg.
At least 13 people from the school were being treated at three hospitals, authorities said. Eight people were at Clear Lake Regional Medical in Webster, Texas; two patients were being treated at Mainland Medical Center in Texas City; and three patients are at John Sealy University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
Six of the eight patients at Clare Lake Regional were discharged by Friday afternoon.
Aerial video from the scene showed several police officers outside the school. Some were searching students and their backpacks.
Witnesses describe hearing an alarm as well as gunfire
Angelica Martinez, a 14-year-old student, told CNN she and her schoolmates were being evacuated at one point "like it's a fire drill."
"We were all standing (outside), but not even five minutes later, we started hearing gunshots," she said. "And then everybody starts running, but, like, the teachers are telling us to stay put, but we're all just running away."
"I didn't see anybody shooting, but like (the gunshots) were kind of spaced," Angelica said, adding she heard about four shots.
The witness who spoke to KTRK also said she heard an alarm. She didn't specify if that was before or after the gunfire she described in the art class.
She said she couldn't describe the shooter.
"I didn't look. I just ran," she said.
Police officers work a checkpoint in front of Santa Fe High School in response to the shooting.
Another student, Dakota Shrader, told CNN affiliate KPRC that she heard gunshots only after hearing an alarm in the school.
"I was in the history hallway, and as soon as we heard the alarms, everybody just started leaving following the same procedure as ... (a) practice fire drill," Shrader said, breaking into tears. "And next thing you know, we just hear ... three gunshots, loud explosions, and all the teachers are telling us to run."
Santa Fe High School student Dakota Shrader is comforted by her mother Susan Davidson after Friday's shooting.
MaKenna Evans, a 16-year-old sophomore, told CNN she was in geometry class when the shooting started.
First, she heard a fire alarm, she said. When the students got outside, her principal told them all to run.
Evans said students hid behind a building across the street from the school.
The high school has about 1,400 students, according to GreatSchools.org.
Three gun incidents in eight days
Friday's shooting was the third time someone with a gun was reported on a US school in recent days.
On Wednesday, an Illinois school resource officer shot and wounded a former student who fired a weapon near a graduation rehearsal at Dixon High School , authorities said. The suspected gunman faces three charges of aggravated discharge of a firearm.
On May 11, a 14-year-old boy in In Palmdale, California, went to Highland High, his former school, and began shooting a semiautomatic rifle shortly before classes began, authorities said . He was taken into custody and is accused of attempted murder. One person was wounded.
Trump: Mass shootings have been 'going on too long in our country'
President Donald Trump addressed the school shooting in Santa Fe Friday, saying that mass shootings have been "going on too long."
"Unfortunately, I have to begin by expressing our sadness and heartbreak over the deadly shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas," Trump said from the East Room of the White House. "This has been going on too long in our country. Too many years. Too many decades now."
Trump said federal authorities are coordinating with local officials.
"We grieve for the terrible loss of life and send our support to everyone affected by this absolutely horrific attack," Trump said.
Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump said Friday that mass shootings have been "going on too long in our country" as he offered his first public remarks on the school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas.
"Unfortunately, I have to begin by expressing our sadness and heartbreak over the deadly shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas," Trump said Friday from the East Room of the White House. "This has been going on too long in our country. Too many years. Too many decades now."
Trump said federal authorities are coordinating with local officials.
"We grieve for the terrible loss of life and send our support to everyone affected by this absolutely horrific attack," Trump said.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said the newly created Federal Commission on School Safety, which she chairs, is working daily "to identify proven ways to prevent violence and keep our students safe at school."
Read More
10 U.S.
Why Is the Second Amendment So Cryptic?
SANTA FE, Tex. — A male student was in custody on Friday morning after a shooting spree inside a high school in southeast Texas left at least 10 people dead, the majority believed to be students, and 10 wounded, the authorities said.
The suspect was identified as 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis, according to a law enforcement official. He used a shotgun and a .38 revolver, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas said at a news conference. The weapons appeared to have been obtained from the suspect’s father, who legally owned them, Mr. Abbott said.
In what has become a national rite, the authorities arrived en masse at a campus, this time at Santa Fe High School, 35 miles from Houston, as students fled in tears. In addition to the suspect, the authorities said another student was detained as a person of interest.
Photo
Here’s what we know:
• The Santa Fe Independent School District said in a tweet that “explosive devices” had been found both on the campus and in surrounding areas.
• The school district said the situation at the school, in Santa Fe, Tex., began at about 7:45 a.m. Friday, just after the start of the school day.
• None of the victims were immediately identified. One of the injured was an officer working for the Santa Fe school district as a school resource officer, said Joe Giusti, a Galveston County commissioner.
• Gov. Greg Abbott called the shooting “one of the most heinous attacks that we’ve ever seen in the history of Texas schools. It’s impossible to describe the magnitude of the evil of someone who would attack innocent children in a school.”
Students described a chaotic and terrifying morning: ‘We didn’t know what was going on.’
Logan Roberts, an 18-year-old senior, was in his first period class when the fire bell went off. He walked outside with groups of other students, who gathered in a small field.
He said he heard two sounds — “like when you kick a trash can” — and then saw teachers running from the side of the building out of the corner of his eye. Other teachers started telling the students to get back. He heard three other sounds and someone told the students to run.
“We didn’t know what was going on,” he said. “It was terrifying. It was scary. I’m saying scary a lot, because it was.”
“There were kids out there running, and he could have probably picked us off, but he didn’t,” he said. “So it was just a scary thing that happened.”
Mr. Roberts said that he knew the shooting suspect and that he was in two classes with him. “It’s very odd. I’ve talked to him. He’s a nice kid,” he said.
Asked how he felt, he said: “Awkward, weird and wondering why the person did it.”
Asked about gun control by a group of reporters who stood around him, he said: “I don’t have a comment about that. We shouldn’t control our guns.”
Dakota Shrader, a sophomore, said she heard alarms go off and headed outside, and then heard three gunshots, The Houston Chronicle reported. Ms. Shrader said she took off running, and then had an asthma attack. “Every school shooting, kids getting killed, innocent kids getting killed,” she said.
The Santa Fe Police Department, Harris County Sheriff’s Office, Galveston County Sheriff and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives all said they were assisting in the response.
Photo
Here’s what we know about the school.
Located in rural Galveston County, Santa Fe High School serves 1,477 students and mixes vocational course offerings like livestock production and welding with the standard algebra, physics and history.
On Thursday night, the school’s graduating class of 2018 had its Sunset Dinner and Powder Puff Game, according to the school’s website, and its varsity baseball team played Kingwood Park in the first game of the regional quarterfinal playoffs.
In February, the school was locked down for more than an hour as a precautionary measure after the authorities received a report of loud sounds believed to be gunshots.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
“In light of recent tragic nationwide events, we realize that this incident was especially concerning for our students, staff and parents,” the school district’s superintendent, Dr. Leigh Wall, wrote in a letter to parents that day.
Before Friday’s shooting, the school was perhaps best known for its role in the fight for school prayer in the late 1990s. In 2000, the Supreme Court struck down the school’s longstanding tradition of school-sponsored prayer at football games, ruling that the practice of delivering prayers over loudspeakers before the games violated the separation of church and state.
In 2015, the student body was 80 percent white, 17 percent Hispanic and 19 percent low-income, according to the nonprofit GreatSchools, citing data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
Last weekend was prom, where a strict dress code was enforced, and in two weeks, May 31, the school year is scheduled to end with an early dismissal.
Mr. Giusti, who represents an area that includes Santa Fe, said that the school district completed active shooter training at its schools last summer. He said that the district had additional training after the Parkland shooting. After Parkland, the school received several threats that the district investigated and found not to be credible.
A teacher also thought she heard a gunshot near the campus during school not long after Parkland. But Mr. Giusti said there was no indication that those episodes were related to the shooting on Friday.
Photo
‘In this little town, you wouldn’t think something like this could happen,’ said a neighbor.
Several hours after the shooting in Santa Fe, a rural town between Houston and Galveston, police cars blocked the road off the state highway where the town’s only high school is located.
The school’s buses filed out along a nearby street, empty but for their drivers. Earlier in the morning, Billie Scheumack, 68, was in her backyard when she heard what sounded like a couple of firecrackers.
“I thought the kids were playing,” Ms. Scheumack said. “But then I heard ambulances and fire trucks. It didn’t sound right, so I went out front.”
There she saw kids from the high school running, scared and clutching their phones, down her street, Tower Road, about a block from the school. A neighbor told her that some children had been shot.
“In this little town, you wouldn’t think something like this could happen,” Ms. Scheumack said.
Photo
President Trump expressed heartbreak and frustration about the shooting.
Mr. Trump said his administration would do “everything in our power” to keep guns away from those who should not have them.
“This has been going on for too long in our country — too many years, too many decades now,” Mr. Trump said in the East Room of the White House, where he was making remarks on prison reform.
“My administration is determined to do everything in our power to protect our students, secure our schools, and do everything we can to keep weapons out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselves and to others,” he said.
Mr. Trump’s comments came months after he vowed to take action on school safety and gun restrictions in the wake of a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in February, where 17 were killed. At the time, the president, a member of the National Rifle Association who has strong political support from gun owners, said he would look at stricter background checks and raising the minimum age for buying an assault weapon, proposals that the group opposes.
He also pressed for an N.R.A.-backed proposal to arm teachers, and said he would favor taking guns away from potentially dangerous people without due process. But Mr. Trump did not press for action on any of those initiatives, and Congress did not follow through.
Read more on Mr. Trump’s remarks.
