The nation experienced another tragic school shooting Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, but unlike the previous ones, there were very few red flags, according to authorities.
Dimitrios Pagourtzis, the 17-year-old suspect, is being held without bond in the Galveston County jail on charges of capital murder. He used his father’s Remington 870 shotgun and .38 caliber pistol in the attack that left 10 dead and 10 wounded at Santa Fe High School, according to a probable cause affidavit and complaint charged against him.
“Unlike Parkland, unlike Sutherland Springs, there were not those types of warning signs,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news conference Friday night. “The red-flag warnings were either nonexistent or very imperceptible.”
Abbott was referring to the Feb. 14 Parkland, Florida, school shooting that killed 17 people, where law enforcement – from FBI to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office – was accused of ignoring several tips and warning signs surrounding shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz, as well as the shooting that killed 26 people in November inside a church in a town near San Antonio.
Pagourtzis had recently posted a picture of a T-shirt reading “Born to Kill” on his Facebook page and he followed a number of accounts on Instagram like “sickguns” and “gunspictures,” Abbott said, but classmates described Pagourtzis as a quiet, avid video game player who routinely wore a black trench coat and black boots to class. He quit playing football on the school’s junior varsity squad last fall and danced as part of a church group.
According to the affidavit, Pagourtzis told investigators “he did not shoot students he did like so he could have his story told,” and authorities found journals on his phone and computer saying he was planning to commit suicide after carrying out the shooting.
Those who know him expressed shock that he might be involved in the massacre.
Michael Farina, 17, grew up with Pagourtzis and said he would play video games with him. He recalled Pagourtzis knew a lot about guns and remembered him asking which gun he should get when he was older.
“I’m kind of dumbfounded,” Farina said. “We didn’t get any warning.”
