(CNN) The teenager who allegedly used a shotgun and a revolver to kill 10 people and wound 10 others at a Texas high school Friday admitted he didn't shoot people he liked and meant to kill the ones he did target, a probable cause affidavit says.
Suspect Dimitrios Pagourtzis , 17, has cooperated with police, said Galveston County Magistrate Mark Henry said. Henry denied bail for the student, who is accused of capital murder of multiple people and aggravated assault on a public servant.
Students at Santa Fe High School, not far from Houston in southeastern Texas, scrambled for safety after they heard shots just after class began Friday morning. Nine students and one teacher were killed, a law enforcement official told CNN.
Pagourtzis said little during a video court appearance, answering "Yes, sir" when asked whether he wanted a court-appointed attorney. He was not asked to enter a plea.
The probable cause affidavit says he told an investigator he spared people he liked because he wanted his story told.
The alleged shooter used a shotgun and a .38 revolver that were legally owned by his father, Gov. Greg Abbott told reporters. Two school resource officers were on the campus and confronted the shooter "early on in the process," Abbott said.
Latest developments
• A student who survived being shot in the head tweeted: "I'm so greatful and blessed that god spared me today." Rome Shubert showed CNN affiliate KTRK where a bullet went in the back of his head and came out near his left ear.
• A Pakistani exchange student, Sabika Sheikh, was killed, the country's embassy in Washington said.
• Substitute teacher Cynthia Tisdale was also killed, her family said.
• One classmate told CNN the alleged shooter was "really quiet and he wore like a trench coat almost every day."
• Abbott said investigators have found journals on a computer and cell phone owned by the suspect.
• 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."
• Henry, the Galveston County magistrate, said the suspect told investigators he acted alone.
• Retired Houston Police officer John Barnes was one of the people shot at Santa Fe High School, a hospital official said. Houston's police chief tweeted that he visited the hospital where Barnes was being treated and that Barnes was "hanging in there." The officer was working as a Santa Fe officer, a police union official tweeted.
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, a law enforcement official said.
Henry told reporters that the suspect had devices but none was functional. One was a pressure cooker with an alarm clock and nails, but no explosive material. There was also an unlit Molotov cocktail found, he said.
A second person -- also believed to be a student -- has been detained as well, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said earlier.
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.
Witness: Shooter fired gun in an art class
Daymon Rabon was in class when he heard a loud bang next door.
"We thought maybe someone was banging on the shop door or maybe something fell," the senior said. Rabon said he followed his teacher, who went to investigate.
They heard three more bangs and saw the shooter come out off of an art room.
"At this point we knew this was ... really happening to us," Rabon said.
They went back into their classroom and told others to help barricade the door.
Rabon said he heard more than a dozen shots.
"You could hear him getting closer," he said. "Everyone was crying, in complete tears, just in utter disbelief."
Rabon said he heard someone shooting back and they gave them some hope, but the shooting seemed right outside their door.
Victims were being treated at three hospitals, authorities said. Eight people went to Clear Lake Regional Medical in Webster, Texas; two patients were treated at Mainland Medical Center in Texas City; and four patients went to John Sealy University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. It is unclear whether they were all wounded or some were treated for other injuries.
Six of the eight patients at Clear Lake Regional were discharged by Friday afternoon.
Witnesses describe hearing an alarm as well as gunfire
"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.
A 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.
The high school has about 1,400 students, according to GreatSchools.org.
Houston police chief: 'I've hit rock bottom'
Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo wrote an emotional post on Facebook late Friday evening saying he was "not ashamed to admit I've shed tears of sadness, pain and anger." Acevedo spoke directly to gun-rights enthusiasts in his post.
"I know some have strong feelings about gun rights, but I want you to know I've hit rock bottom and I am not interested in your views as it pertains to this issue," he said, adding he would "de-friend" anyone who posted anything about "guns aren't the problem" and "there's little we can do."
Acevedo said he would continue to speak up and "stand up for what my heart and my God commands me to do."
"I assure you it he hasn't instructed me that gun-rights are bestowed by him," he said.
Now, Acevedo said, was not the time for prayers, study or inaction.
"It's a time for prayers, action and the asking of God's forgiveness for our inaction (especially the elected officials that ran to the cameras today, acted in a solemn manner, called for prayers, and will once again do absolutely nothing)," he said.
President Trump: Mass shootings have been 'going on too long in our country'
President Donald Trump addressed the school shooting, 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.
Trump has ordered US flags at federal facilities be flown at half-staff.
Ten people were killed after a gunman believed to be a student opened fire at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, in the latest spasm of gun violence in a country still shaken by the massacre at a Florida high school in February.
Authorities quickly named 17-year-old student Dimitrios Pagourtzis as their suspect. Later in the day he was charged with capital murder - for which he did not enter a plea - and was denied bond. He was being held in solitary confinement.
Scenes of grief and horror streamed out of the small community less than an hour's drive from Houston. Stunned and weeping teenagers tried to piece together the mayhem they had experienced. Schools were set to be closed for the start of the following week, with the FBI saying Santa Fe High School and the surrounding area would remain a closed crime scene “for some time”.
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Authorities said the assailant appeared to have obtained his weapons - a shotgun and a revolver - from his father, who possessed them legally. Explosive devices were found both at the school and off campus, Mr Gonzalez said.
Texas shooting: scene at Santa Fe high school
15 show all Texas shooting: scene at Santa Fe high school
1/15 Santa Fe High School staff react as they gather in the parking lot of a gas station The Galveston County Daily News via AP
2/15 An active shooter incident was reported at Santa Fe High School in Texas KTRK-TV ABC13 via AP
3/15 People embrace outside the Alamo Gym where students and parents wait to reunite following a shooting at Santa Fe High School Houston Chronicle via AP
4/15 Law enforcement officers responding at Santa Fe High School HCSO via Reuters
5/15 Santa Fe High School student Dakota Shrader is comforted by her mother Susan Davidson following a shooting at the school Stuart Villanueva/The Galveston County Daily News via AP
6/15 School staff members sit in a school bus to be transported to another school The Galveston County Daily News via AP
7/15 A Santa Fe Police officer consoles others after the shooting The Galveston County Daily News via AP
8/15 Emergency personnel and law enforcement officers respond to claims that an active shooter was reported on campus KTRK-TV ABC13 via AP
9/15 Police officers work a check point in front of Santa Fe High School The Galveston County Daily News via AP
10/15 A woman prays in the grass outside the Alamo Gym where parents wait to reunite with their kids following a shooting at Santa Fe High School Houston Chronicle via AP
11/15 Santa Fe High School freshman Caitlyn Girouard, center, hugs her friend outside the Alamo Gym Houston Chronicle via AP
12/15 A Pearland Police armored vehicle stands in front of Santa Fe High School The Galveston County Daily News via AP
13/15 Emergency responders from multiple agencies work at the scene The Galveston County Daily News via AP
14/15 KTRK-TV ABC13 via AP
15/15 KTRK-TV ABC13 via AP
Court documents said the suspect admitted to authorities having carried out the shooting “with the intent of killing people” and said he spared the lives of students he liked so that “he could have his story told“.
Writings in the suspect's journals that indicated he wanted to take his own life, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said.
“We also know information already that the shooter has information contained in journals on his computer and his cell phone that he said that not only did he want to commit the shooting, but he wanted to commit suicide after the shooting,” he said.
“As you probably know, he gave himself up and admitted at the time he didn't have the courage to commit the suicide, that he wanted to take his own life earlier,” Abbott added.
Some fellow students described him as quiet. He also played on the school's American football team.
Donald Trump issues statement after Santa Fe High School shooting
President Donald Trump called the shooting heartbreaking and said that federal and local authorities were coordinating in the wake of the gun attack.
“My administration is determined to do everything in our power to protect our students, secure our schools and to keep weapons out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselves and to others,” Mr Trump said at the White House.
As the day unfolded, Democratic elected officials said the latest shooting again proved the need for tougher gun laws. They were joined by teenage survivors of the Florida shooting who have turned into vocal fun control advocates.
While Mr Abbott said he intended to convene a series of public meetings to find “solutions” that would prevent more shootings, he did not elaborate on details.
Dimitrios Pagourtzis was seen entering the low-slung building at Santa Fe High School on Friday morning, armed and wearing a trench coat.
Like others who’ve terrorized American students, the 17-year-old planned to kill his peers and then himself, the authorities said.
He opened fire, and the school erupted in chaos. An alarm clanged, and in the art room, bloodied students cried for help.
But once the bullets pierced his classmates’ bodies, the suspect surrendered, said Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, and admitted “that he didn’t have the courage to commit the suicide.”
On Friday, as a small Texas town grappled with the deaths of 10 of their own, a sketchy profile of another violent young man came to the fore, the disturbing details of his life blurring with those of the school gunmen of the past.
“Born to Kill” appeared on a T-shirt he posted on his Facebook page, along with images of the trench coat and an explanation of its decorations.
“Hammer and Sickle=Rebellion,” he wrote. “Rising Sun=Kamikaze Tactics. Iron Cross=Bravery. Baphomet=Evil.”
Above all this, Mr. Pagourtzis posted artwork seemingly inspired by the electronic musician James Kent, professionally known as Perturbator. Mr. Kent’s music — largely instrumental — has been adopted by affiliates of neo-Nazi groups and the alt-right.
Mr. Abbott said that the gunman had used a shotgun and .38 revolver, both of which appeared to be obtained from the suspect’s father, who legally owned them. The suspect also kept a journal, which detailed his plans for the attack and his suicide.
Dr. Chuck Burnell, the chief medical officer for Acadian Ambulance Service, said it appeared that the gunman had loaded the shotgun with buckshot and that “the high degree of lethality was because of close-range buckshot.”
By Friday afternoon, the suspect was in custody at the Galveston County jail. Federal authorities are seeking search warrants to find explosive devices at two residences.
Police said the gunman brought several of these devices into the school. It was unclear whether any went off.
During a court appearance that lasted about two minutes on Friday evening, a Texas judge denied bond for Mr. Pagourtzis, who has been charged with capital murder and aggravated assault against a public servant. Mr. Pagourtzis, who was dressed in a jail jumpsuit and said little as he stood before a judge, requested a court-appointed lawyer. He was not asked to enter a plea.
SANTA FE, Tex. — A nation plagued by a wrenching loop of mass school shootings watched the latest horror play out in this small Southeast Texas town Friday morning, as a young man armed with a shotgun and a .38 revolver smuggled under his coat opened fire on his high school campus, killing 10 people, many of them his fellow students, and wounding 10 more, the authorities said.
By the end of the day, a 17-year-old suspect, Dimitrios Pagourtzis — an introvert who had given off few warning signs — had surrendered and been taken into custody. Law enforcement officials said they found two homemade explosive devices left at the school during the rampage.
It was the worst school shooting since the February assault on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where a young man with an AR-15 rifle left 17 people dead and prompted a wave of nationwide, student-led protests calling on lawmakers to tighten gun laws.
It was barely after 7:30 a.m. at Santa Fe High School, about 35 miles southeast of Houston, when gunfire first resounded through the halls, the opening volley of yet another massacre at an American high school that would leave students, teachers and staff members shocked, and in some cases bloodied. But they were not necessarily surprised.
A video interview with one student, Paige Curry, spread across social media, an artifact of a moment when children have come to expect violence in their schools.
“Was there a part of you that was like, ‘This isn’t real, this is — this would not happen in my school?’” the reporter asked.
The young girl shook her head: “No, there wasn’t.”
“Why so?” the reporter asked.
“It’s been happening everywhere,” she said. “I felt — I’ve always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too.”
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President Trump, in the East Room of the White House, expressed his solidarity with the people of Santa Fe, and said his administration would do “everything in our power” to protect schools and keep guns away from those who should not have them.
Mr. Trump had also vowed to take action after the Parkland shooting. 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.
But Mr. Trump did not press for action on any of those initiatives, and Congress did not follow through. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Friday that the Justice Department was proposing to ban so-called bump stocks through regulations rather than wait for Congress to act.
The authorities had not released the names of those who died in the shooting late Friday, but family and associates of some of the victims had begun to share their stories on social media. The family of Cynthia Tisdale, a teacher, said on Facebook that she had been killed in the shooting. And on the Facebook page of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States expressed condolences for the victims, which he said included a Pakistani exchange student named Sabika Sheikh.
The shooting in Texas began at the start of a school day when summer seemed just around the corner. The night before, seniors had gathered for a sunset dinner and a Powder Puff football game, according to the school’s website, and the baseball team had been playing in the regional quarterfinals.
Zachary Muehe, a sophomore, headed to school thinking about the late work he was supposed to submit before the end of the school year, and settled into his art class to work on a drawing project. He was engrossed in his phone, he said, when his class began to transform into a horror scene.
It started with a boom, and then one or two more. “I turned around and I saw the kid who’s in my football class, I see him every day, and I saw him with a shotgun,” Mr. Muehe said in a phone interview. “I saw him in a trench coat. My immediate thought was just get out.”
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It was Mr. Pagourtzis, a youth he recognized as a football teammate who used the locker next to his. “He had one sawed-off shotgun and he had a pistol,” Ms. Muehe said. “He was wearing a trench coat with combat boots. He had a ‘Born to Kill’ shirt on.”
Mr. Pagourtzis, he said, began shooting as soon as he entered the classroom. “It was crazy watching him shoot and then pump,” Mr. Muehe said. “I remember seeing the shrapnel from the tables, whatever he hit, I remember seeing the shrapnel go past my face.”
Mr. Muehe immediately tried to escape. He and his friends went to a back door in the classroom, which leads to a small courtyard, but the door was locked. He then went to a ceramics closet that connects to another art classroom, and as he took one more look at the classroom behind him, he saw students lying on the ground.
“There was a girl on the ground,” Mr. Muehe said, “and he shot her in the head one or two times.” When Mr. Muehe opened the door to the closet, he said, he found students from the next classroom hiding inside. He urged them to run, and began running himself. “I just started running, as fast as I could to the other side of the campus, where I could at least tell someone,” he said.
Kole Dixon, 16, a sophomore, said he was standing outside history class when the fire alarm suddenly went off. He sprinted out a side door, and heard gunshots in rapid succession over the sound of the fire alarm.
When the shooting stopped, Mr. Dixon said that friends told him that the gunman first entered an art classroom, said “Surprise!” and started shooting. The suspect’s ex-girlfriend was among the people shot in that classroom, he said.
Santa Fe is a town where a fear of hurricanes usually outweighs a fear of homicides, and residents seemed shocked by the scene that unfolded. Billie Scheumack, 68, said she saw students 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.
In a news conference Friday, the authorities released few details of their encounter with Mr. Pagourtzis, but Col. Steven C. McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said that police officers had responded quickly. At one point, Colonel McCraw said, a police chief rescued an officer who had been critically wounded. The TV station KHOU reported that the officer, John Barnes, had been hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the arm.
“We know that because they were willing to run into that building and engage that other lives were saved,” the colonel said.
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas said two police officers had been on the campus at the time at the attack — as envisioned by the school’s safety plan — and that they were “able to confront the shooter early on in the process.”
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The governor said that the suspect had offered few clues that he would carry out a massacre of such scale, although Mr. Abbott did say that the suspect’s Facebook page had included a photograph of a shirt that read “Born to Kill.”
“Unlike Parkland, unlike Sutherland Springs, there were not those types of warning signs,” Mr. Abbott said. “We have what are often categorized as red-flag warnings, and here, the red-flag warnings were either nonexistent or very imperceptible.”
The T-shirt, Mr. Abbott said, appeared to be “maybe the only, if not the foremost, warning sign.” He added that Mr. Pagourtzis had no history of arrests or confrontation with law enforcement.
“His slate is pretty clean,” Mr. Abbott said.
The governor said that the suspect had information about the shooting on his computer and cellphone.
“He said that not only did he want to commit the shooting, but he wanted to commit suicide after the shooting,” Mr. Abbott said, adding that Mr. Pagourtzis had ultimately surrendered and “admitted at the time that he didn’t have the courage to commit the suicide.”
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Both weapons appeared to have been taken from the suspect’s father, who is believed to have obtained them legally, Mr. Abbott said.
Investigators intended to question two other people: One was at the scene and had “suspicious reactions,” according to the governor, and another is someone who quickly drew the scrutiny of investigators.
Many answers about who the young man was, and what may have motivated him, remained blurry or fragmented Friday evening. A photo of Mr. Pagourtzis shows a young man with heavy black eyebrows and a backward baseball cap, staring at the camera with lips slightly pursed.
Some images on his Facebook page, now deleted, suggest a possible interest in white supremacist groups, though a direct link to his politics was not evident.
Valerie Martin, a teacher at the junior high school in Santa Fe, had taught Mr. Pagourtzis in her pre-Advanced Placement language arts class. She said he was a bright student — he had taken part in the school’s competition for the National History Contest — and while he was reserved, Ms. Martin had discerned no reason to be concerned about him.
“He was quiet, but he wasn’t quiet in a creepy way,” she said. “He was an introvert, not an extrovert.”
Ms. Martin had also taught Mr. Pagourtzis’s sister; she said she had heard the high school had been hard on her, and that “she was bullied so terribly at the high school that she transferred to Clear Creek,” a school district up the road toward Houston.
But Ms. Martin did not know if the young man had received the same kind of treatment, and said she had seen no signs of bullying toward either of them when she had taught them.
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Some students at Santa Fe High School had taken part in a protest after the Parkland shooting.
On a cold Friday morning last month — the day of the National School Walkout — Kyle Harris and 11 other students had stood outside Santa Fe High hoping to spread their gun control message to their classmates.
One of them held a poster: “Santa Fe High School says #NeverAgain.” They read a poem by a survivor of the Parkland shooting, an event that was searing to them, but far away.
“Being part of that gathering was me telling people to stand up for themselves,” said Mr. Harris, who is in 10th grade.
One month later, the family of Sarah Salazar, a sophomore at Santa Fe High, held an anxious vigil at a Texas hospital, where Ms. Salazar was in surgery after being shot several times.
Rosemary Salazar, Sarah’s aunt, said that she was in art class when the shooting occurred. Doctors were working to repair wounds to her stomach, her thigh and her shoulder, which was severely damaged.
“They said that her left shoulder is pretty much gone,” Ms. Salazar said. “She’ll have to undergo a lot more surgery.”
The family had spent 90 minutes calling and texting Sarah — and receiving no response — before finding out that she had been shot.
Word of the shooting also spread its pain to Stoneman Douglas High. Kaitlyn Jesionowski, a student there, first saw the news on Twitter on what was the last day of school for seniors. It all came rushing back: the fear, the anxiety, the stress.
“I started replaying what happened to us in my head,” she said. “Over and over.”
