Officials have identified a person in custody in the Houston-area school shooting as 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis.
Two law enforcement officials have identified a person in custody in the Houston-area school shooting as 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis.
The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss the shooting and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Suspect ID’d in deadly Texas school shooting
Authorities say eight to 10 people, mostly students, were killed in the nation’s deadliest such attack since the shooting at a Florida high school in February that gave rise to a campaign by teenagers for gun control.
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said he could not be precise about the number of deaths at Santa Fe High School, which went on lockdown around 8 a.m. In addition to Pagourtzis, a second person has also been detained, he said.
An unknown number of possible explosive devices were found at the school and at a separate site nearby.
A woman who answered the phone at a number associated with the Pagourtzis family declined to speak with The Associated Press.
“Please don’t call us. Give us our time right now, thank you,” she said.
Pagourtzis played on the school’s junior varsity football team and was a member of a dance squad with a local Greek Orthodox church.
Father Stelios Sitaras of Assumption of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church in Galveston, Texas, said he met Pagourtzis when the young man danced with a group as part of an annual festival in October. He said the Pagourtzises are members of a nearby parish.
Sitaras said he had never heard of the teen being in any sort of trouble.
“He is a quiet boy,” the priest said. “You would never think he would do anything like this.”
Biesecker and Horwitz reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington and John Mone in Santa Fe contributed.
