Galveston, Texas — A Texas court is now deliberating whether the parents of a high school shooter can be held responsible for their son’s actions after he tragically killed eight students and two teachers at Santa Fe High School in May 2018. The civil trial, drawing national attention, probes the roles of Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Marie Kosmetatos in failing to secure their firearms and not addressing their son Dimitrios’s deteriorating mental health.
Survivors and families of the victims brought the lawsuit against the shooter’s parents, claiming negligence. Throughout the emotionally charged trial, various testimonies highlighted the tragic events and attempted to parse responsibility for the deadly incident.
The jury, tasked with assessing potential negligence, adjourned late Friday and is scheduled to resume at 9 a.m. Monday. Although the parents face this civil lawsuit, they have not been criminally charged, while their son’s criminal trial was postponed due to findings of his mental incompetence, landing him in a state mental hospital since December 2019.
Dimitrios Pagourtzis was 17 years old when he carried out the mass shooting, injuring an additional 13 people at the school located about 20 miles southeast of Houston. During the trial, his parents maintained that they had locked away their firearms and had not observed any warning signs that could have indicated their son’s deadly intentions.
In his closing argument, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Clint McGuire, emphasized numerous indications that the defendant’s parents had been aware of their son’s mental health struggles. He accused them of negligence for not securing their firearms properly and failing to provide necessary mental health support. McGuire highlighted emails and testimonies from the parents acknowledging their son’s troubles but claimed they were inactive in addressing them adequately.
The defense countered by focusing on the issue of mental illness, suggesting that Dimitrios was profoundly affected by it, and that his actions, though tragic, were the product of his unstable mental condition. Defense attorney Lori Laird advocated for viewing the parents as victims of unforeseen circumstances rather than culprits, arguing they were uninformed of the extent of their son’s mental issues and that they had taken reasonable measures to secure their firearms.
This trial has paralleled the landmark case involving the parents of Ethan Crumbley, who committed a school shooting in Michigan in 2021. Crumbley’s parents were convicted of manslaughter, demonstrating the increasing legal scrutiny parents face concerning their potential indirect roles in such tragedies.
Further testimony in the trial shed light on Dimitrios Pagourtzis’ behavior leading up to the shooting, including significant absences from school and maintaining a disheveled appearance—factors that contributed to the overall portrait of a troubled youth. Just 18 days before the massacre, he ominously posted an image of himself wearing a “Born to Kill” T-shirt, a detail not lost on the prosecution.
Amid these hearings, debates ensued regarding the responsibilities of parents in securing firearms and monitoring their children’s mental health, probing the broader societal implications and the quest for justice by those affected by the shooting. As the jury deliberates, the outcome of this case may well set a significant precedent for how similar cases are viewed and handled in the future, emphasizing the critical intersection of mental health issues, parental responsibility, and firearm security.