By Brad Brooks
(Reuters) – A Galveston, Texas, jury on Monday discovered the mother and father of a youngster who shot and killed 10 classmates at Santa Fe Excessive College in 2018 not responsible for the violence, ending an uncommon civil trial.
Members of the family of the capturing victims and survivors accused Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Kosmetatos of being negligent in permitting their son, Dimitrios, to acquire weapons from their residence and for not warning faculty officers or police about his deteriorating psychological state.
“It was their son under their roof with their guns who went and committed this mass shooting,” Clint McGuire, an lawyer for a number of the plaintiffs, stated throughout closing arguments Friday following three weeks of trial.
The lawsuit, which sought monetary damages left to jurors to find out, was filed shortly after the Might 18, 2018, Santa Fe Excessive College rampage that additionally injured 13 individuals. Amongst these killed was a 17-year-old Pakistani woman who was an change scholar on the faculty.
The jury’s determination got here 4 months after the sentencing of two Michigan mother and father discovered responsible of manslaughter after a jury discovered they ignored warning indicators earlier than their son shot and killed 4 classmates at Oxford Excessive College in 2021. Jennifer and James Crumbley are the primary mother and father identified to have been charged with manslaughter in a faculty capturing carried out by considered one of their youngsters.
Within the Texas case, Dimitrios Pagourtzis, who was 17 on the time of the capturing, has been charged with capital homicide. He has been deemed mentally incompetent to face trial and can stay in a therapy facility till a decide declares he’s competent.
Lori Laird, an lawyer representing Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Kosmetatos, stated earlier than the decision that holding her purchasers accountable for their son’s capturing rampage was not justified.
“Regardless of the outcome of this lawsuit, nobody has won,” Laird added.
Consultants and gun security advocates have stated holding mother and father accountable for shootings carried out by youngsters is a vital step in lowering faculty violence. Research by the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety have proven that round 75% of all faculty shooters obtained their weapons at residence.
In the course of the trial and within the lawsuit, plaintiffs lawyer McGuire stated the mother and father had been liable as a result of they didn’t correctly safe weapons inside their residence, together with the .38 caliber pistol and shotgun their son used within the faculty capturing.
The lawsuit acknowledged that Dimitrios Pagourtzis was obsessive about the 1999 mass capturing at Columbine Excessive College in Colorado, and that “he took pains to dress like the Columbine shooters – wearing a full-length black trench coat and black combat boots regularly to school, despite the South Texas heat.”
Laird stated in an interview that the mother and father didn’t know their son was mentally unwell and noticed no warning indicators. For the reason that capturing, she stated, Dimitrios Pagourtzis had been identified with schizoaffective dysfunction. Laird stated the son’s first “psychotic break” was when he carried out the capturing.
Laird additionally stated the mother and father’ weapons had been saved in a gun protected and a locked cupboard.
Final yr, Everytown Legislation, the litigation arm for the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Security, introduced a settlement between households of victims of the Santa Fe capturing and the web ammunition retailer Luckygunner, the place Dimitrios Pagourtzis bought bullets used within the capturing, regardless of being too younger to take action.
Luckygunner and Dimitrios Pagourtzis additionally had been defendants within the civil case in opposition to the mother and father.
Everytown Legislation additionally represented a number of the households within the lawsuit in opposition to the mother and father. The group declined to remark forward of the decision.
