Santa Fe High School school shooting suspect Dimitrios Pagourtzis admitted to shooting the nine students and one teacher that were killed on Friday morning.
Galveston County Magistrate Mark Henry told CNN that the 17-year-old student cooperated with police, telling them in a probable cause affidavit that he didn’t shoot anybody he liked and that the 10 people who died were ones he specifically targeted.
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Pagourtzis briefly appeared in court late Friday afternoon, asking for a court-appointed attorney. He told officers in the affidavit that he spared other students because he “wanted his story told.”
The student allegedly used two weapons, a .38 pistol and shotgun, to carry out the shooting. Both weapons were legally owned by his father.
“Neither of these weapons were owned or legally possessed by the shooter,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said, reports CNN. “I have no information if the father was aware the son had taken these weapons.”
Police also found pressure cookers and pipe bombs around the school grounds, none of which detonated.
Initial reports of shots being fired reached the police at 7:40 a.m. when Pagourtzis opened fire during the school day’s first period. By 8:30 a.m. the school had been fully evacuated, though many students claimed to have fled the school grounds once they first heard gunshots. Pagourtzis, wearing a trench coat and a t-shirt with the words “Born to Kill” on the front, was arrested by 9 a.m.
Abbott confirmed during a press conference that Pagourtzis was planning to take his own life after the shooting, based off of findings in his personal journal and cell phone.
“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,” Abbott told reporters.
The governor continued, “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.”
SFHS student Damon Rabon told CBS News he heard a “loud banging, kind of a ringing noise” when the shooting began.
“It was just so scary, you could hear him walking, you’d hear him walking right past our classroom,” Rabon said. “You could hear the shots, ‘boom, boom, boom.’ Thank God he didn’t come into our classroom.”
“As soon as we heard the alarms, everybody just started leaving following the same procedure as [a] practice fire drill,” another student, Dakota Shrader, tearfully told the news outlet. “And next thing you know, we just hear three gunshots, loud explosions, and all the teachers are telling us to run. You could just hear ‘boom, boom, boom’ so I just ran as fast as I could to the nearest forest to hide and call my mom.”
