Houston Rockets Honor Santa Fe Shooting Victims at Playoff Game

The Houston Rockets paid tribute to the nine students and one teacher who were shot and killed in the Santa Fe High School shooting in Santa Fe, Texas on Friday.

The team wore a special patch on the front of their jerseys as they took on the Golden State Warriors in Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals. Rockets owner Tim Fertitta wore a shirt to the game reading “Santa Fe Strong” across the front, and personally invited the school’s entire senior class to the game for free.

“We’re just trying to do our little bit. That’s all,” Fertitta told reporters on Wednesday. “Just trying to make a special day where, 30 years from now, they think about going to that Western Conference finals game instead of their last few days of being a senior.”

Prior to tip-off, the Santa Fe High School choir led the arena in the National Anthem.

The shooting took place during first period on Friday morning. Following a long standoff with police, 17-year-old student Dimitrios Pagourtzis was arrested on capital murder charges.

He admitted to the Galveston County Sheriff’s Department in an affidavit later Friday afternoon that he had committed the crime, saying every person that died was a target.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott revealed in a press conference that a .38 revolver and a shotgun were used in the shooting, both of which legally belonged to Pagourtzis’ father.

Antonios Pagourtzis discussed his son’s involvement in the shooting in a phone interview with Greece news outlet Antenna TV.

“”Something must have happened now, this last week,” he told the interviewer. “Somebody probably came and hurt him, and since he was a solid boy, I don’t know what could have happened. I can’t say what happened. All I can say is what I suspect as a father.”

Antonios made a number of claims during the interview, including that he asked police to let him inside the building during the standoff so that his son could kill him instead. He also said Pagourtzis was a victim of bullying at the school, and that he was a victim of the situation.

“My son, to me, is not a criminal, he’s a victim,” he said. “The kid didn’t own guns, I owned guns.”

He also said his son had shown no violent tendencies in the past.

“He pulled the trigger but he is not this person,” Antonios said. “It is like we see in the movies when someone gets into his body and does things that are not done. It’s not possible in one day for the child to have changed so much.”

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