Attorney says parents of ex-student accused in Texas school shooting bear responsibility for attack

The parents of a former Texas high school student accused of killing 10 people during a 2018 shooting on his campus bear responsibility for what happened because they failed to help their son amid a mental health crisis or to limit his access to the family’s guns, an attorney representing victims’ families told jurors this week.

“This shooting was premeditated, it was predictable and it was preventable,” attorney Clint McGuire said during opening statements in the civil trial of a lawsuit seeking to hold Dimitrios Pagourtzis and his parents, Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Marie Kosmetatos, financially liable for the shooting at Santa Fe High School in May 2018.

Lori Laird, an attorney for Pagourtzis’ parents, told jurors the couple is heartbroken by the shooting but their son’s mental illness is ultimately to blame for what happened.

“If there had been signs and symptoms, I guarantee you this mom … she would have immediately done something about that,” Laird said.

The lawsuit was filed by family members of seven of those killed and four of the 13 people wounded in the attack.

Pagourtzis was charged with capital murder for the shooting. He was a 17-year-old student when authorities said he killed eight students and two teachers at the school, located about 35 miles southeast of Houston.

The criminal case against the now-23-year-old remains on hold after he was declared incompetent to stand trial. He has been held at the North Texas State Hospital in Vernon since December 2019.

During testimony Thursday, a woman who was a freshman at the time of the shooting recalled hiding in a closet and calling her mother and 911 as shots were fired, CNN affiliate KTRK reported. She described the shooter opening fire on classmates while singing “Another One Bites the Dust” by the band Queen.

Testimony from survivors and law enforcement officers who responded to the scene marked the first time many victims’ family members heard first-hand accounts of the violent rampage and some rushed out of the courtroom in tears after hearing the details, KTRK said.

“We have to relive it, not because we want to, but because we have to. If we didn’t, where would we be right now? We’d be sitting at home with no answers, twiddling our thumbs. We refuse those kind of answers,” Rosie Yanas-Stone, whose son, Chris Stone, was killed, said Thursday, KTRK reported.

“If we can make a difference, it is worth reliving,” said Flo Rice, a substitute teacher who was shot, the affiliate said. “It is worth reliving for one set of parents to lock those guns up and get their child mental help.”

During opening statements Wednesday, McGuire told jurors that Antonios Pagourtzis and Kosmetatos knew their son was suffering from depression. They also knew he’d started getting bad grades and isolating himself, began taking weapons from their gun cabinet and safe, started making disturbing posts on Facebook and began ordering online ammunition and other items such as a knife with a Nazi symbol and a T-shirt that said, “Born To Kill.”

“In spite of the fact he was trying to give them signs, if they did not know he was depressed as they’re claiming, it’s because they failed in their job as parents,” said McGuire, who is representing the families of five students who were killed and two others who were injured. Kosmetatos, who sat at the defense table with her husband, cried as McGuire spoke to jurors.

Laird told jurors Kosmetatos and her husband were good parents who worked hard and tried to do the best for their children. She said Pagourtzis was a typical teenager who was unmotivated and didn’t want to do his schoolwork, but she insisted there were no red flag warnings, such as disciplinary or drug problems. She also said that his parents didn’t know any of their weapons were missing or that he had hidden his online purchases of ammunition and other weapons.

“What needs to be clear to everyone is Dimitrios was suffering in silence. No one saw this,” Laird said.

Laird suggested that some of the blame also belongs with Lucky Gunner, a Tennessee-based online retailer that sold Dimitrios Pagourtzis more than 100 rounds of ammunition without verifying he was old enough to buy it. She also blamed the school for not alerting Pagourtzis’ parents of online searches he had made on a campus computer related to school shootings, suicide and weapons.

Lucky Gunner was a defendant in the lawsuit until last year, when it reached a settlement with the families.

Roberto Torres, who is representing Dimitrios Pagourtzis in the lawsuit, told jurors that while his client did plan the shooting, he was never in control of his actions because of his severe mental illness.

The families are pursuing at least $1 million in damages, but the jury could award a higher amount.

After the trial ended for the day Wednesday, family members of those killed and wounded in the shooting said the lawsuit wasn’t about money but about people being held accountable for actions that enabled the shooting.

Yanas-Stone said she was upset by what she heard as excuses from Dimitrios Pagourtzis’ parents.

“I’m sick and tired every time a school shooting happens, it’s always ‘thoughts and prayers’ and that don’t work no more,” Yanas-Stone said. “As long as we got people like these parents and everybody else saying, ‘Not my fault, not my fault.’ So whose fault is it?”

The trial could last up to three weeks.

Similar lawsuits have been filed following other mass shootings.

In 2022, a jury awarded over $200 million to the mother of one of four people killed in a shooting at a Waffle House in Nashville, Tennessee. The lawsuit had been filed against the shooter and his father, who was accused of returning a rifle to his son before the shooting despite the son’s mental health issues.

In April, Jennifer and James Crumbley were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison by a Michigan judge after becoming the first parents convicted in a US mass school shooting.