Jury Finds Parents of Texas Student Accused in 2018 Deadly School Shooting Not Negligent

Rose Kosmetatos and Antonios Pagourtzis , parents of school shooter Dimitrios Pagourtzis Aug. 16, 2024 in Galveston County Court in Texas(AP)

The parents of a former student accused of killing 10 people at a high school near Houston in 2018 do not bear financial responsibility for the shooting, a jury decided Monday.

A lawsuit brought by victims and their families sought to hold Dimitrios Pagourtzis and his parents, Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Marie Kosmetatos, accountable for the shooting at Santa Fe High School in 2018. During a three-week trial, attorneys for the families argued the parents failed to provide necessary support for their son’s mental health and didn’t do enough to prevent him from accessing their guns.

Jurors instead put the responsibility with Dimitrios Pagourtzis and a firearms ammunition retailer in a verdict that awarded families more than $300 million total in damages, including for pain and mental anguish.

Attorneys for the families said they were disappointed in the outcome.

“We’ve would’ve liked to have the parents share in their responsibility for this,” said Clint McGuire, who represented several of the families.

Authorities say Pagourtzis fatally shot eight students and two teachers. Pagourtzis, now 23, has been charged with capital murder, but the criminal case has been on hold since November 2019, when he was declared incompetent to stand trial. He is being held at a state mental health facility.

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 U.S. mass school shooting. Pagourtzis’ parents are not accused of any crime.

The lawsuit was filed by relatives of seven of the people killed and four of the 13 who were wounded in the Santa Fe attack.

The jury also assigned some responsibility to Lucky Gunner, a Tennessee-based online retailer that sold Dimitrios Pagourtzis more than 100 rounds of ammunition without verifying his age and reached a settlement with the families last year. The company had previously been a defendant in the lawsuit.

Jake Felde, CEO of Lucky Gunner, said in a statement that the company isn’t responsible for any of the damages awarded by the jury because it was dismissed from the lawsuit.

“Lucky Gunner wasn’t a party to the trial, so it was easy for the jury to place some of the blame on us because we weren’t there to defend ourselves,” Felde said.

The attorney representing Pagourtzis told jurors that while his client did plan the shooting, he was never in control of his actions because of his severe mental illness.

McGuire said the parents knew their son was depressed, receiving bad grades, isolating himself, and had taken weapons from their gun cabinet and safe. McGuire said Pagourtzis also wrote disturbing Facebook posts and ordered ammunition and other items online, such as a knife with a Nazi symbol and a T-shirt that said, “Born To Kill.”

But Lori Laird, an attorney for Pagourtzis’ parents, told jurors that the couple hadn’t seen any red flags, knew nothing of his online purchases and didn’t know any of their weapons were missing.

“We need to protect our children. They need to feel safe when they go to school,” Galveston County Court at Law Judge Jack Ewing said after the verdict was delivered. “They need to feel safe at home. And that message will carry even outside of the walls and the doors of this courtroom. And hopefully it will follow into the ears of our legislators.”