Texas jury to decide if student’s parents are liable in a deadly 2018 school shooting

GALVESTON, Texas — Jurors in Texas are expected to resume deliberations Monday on whether the parents of a Texas college student accused of killing 10 people were School shooting in 2018 near Houston should be held financially liable for the damage.

The victims’ lawsuit wants to detain Dimitrios Pagourtzis and his parents, Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Marie Kosmetatos, financially liable for the shooting at Santa Fe High School on May 18, 2018. They are seeking at least $1 million in damages.

Lawyers for the victims say the parents failed to provide their son with the support he needed for his mental health and did not do enough to prevent him from accessing their guns.

“It was their son, under their roof, with their guns, who committed this mass shooting,” Clint McGuire, who represented some of the victims, told jurors during closing statements in the Galveston courtroom.

Authorities say Pagourtzis fatally shot eight students and two teachersHe was 17 years old at the time.

Pagourtzis, now 23, has been charged with first-degree murder, but the criminal case has been stalled since November 2019, when he declared incompetent to stand trial. He is being held in a state mental institution.

Lori Laird, an attorney for Pagourtzis’ parents, said their son’s mental breakdown was unforeseeable and that he hid his plans for the shooting from them. She also said the parents kept their guns locked away.

“The parents didn’t pull the trigger, the parents didn’t give him a gun,” Laird said.

In April, Jennifer and James Crumbley were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison by a Michigan judge after becoming the first parents to be convicted of a mass shooting at a U.S. school. Pagourtzis’ parents have not been charged with a crime.

The lawsuit was filed by families of seven of those killed and four of the 13 wounded in the Santa Fe attack. Attorneys representing some of the survivors spoke of the trauma they continue to endure.