GALVESTON COUNTY, Texas – The Galveston County District Attorney’s Office has released a statement on whether Dimitrios Pagourtzis, the gunman accused of killing 10 people in the 2018 Santa Fe High School shooting, used a computer on campus to research the attack.
During opening statements of the civil trial, the jury was told the charged gunman spent months planning his attack. That planning, jurors heard, included online searches about other school shootings, suicide, Kamikaze techniques and weapons.
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While much of that research was done on a home computer, defense attorney Lori Laird told jurors the charged gunman also looked up some of this material on a school computer. Laird then had that information entered into evidence while questioning former Santa Fe ISD police officer John Barnes, who was critically wounded in the attack.
On Friday, the Galveston County District Attorney’s Office clarified the findings after Santa Fe ISD pushed back on the claim.
“Our Office was previously ordered to produce certain evidence collected during the investigation of the Santa Fe High School shooting. That information consists of thousands upon thousands of electronic files, data, images, and documents collected from various sources. During the investigation, some of this information was organized in various electronic folders and subfolders, including a subfolder entitled, “SFHS Computer Dump.” That subdirectory folder and its contents were among the electronic evidence produced to the attorneys in the civil case as ordered by the trial court. Our Office has not attributed the source of any of this evidence as originating from a specific computer, device, or other source. At this point, we cannot comment further.”
Santa Fe ISD responded to Galveston County DA’s statement on Friday, stating, “Santa Fe ISD would like to thank Jack Roady and the Galveston County District Attorney’s office for their support and assistance in ensuring that we are providing factual information.”
Asst. Superintendent Jenny Davenport further wrote, “Santa Fe ISD can confidently say that in 2018, the District did not have individual logins for students; therefore individual searches on a particular student’s search history could not be completed. Since then, as technology has come to play a larger role in students’ daily academic lives, the District has partnered with Linewize. This is a company that provides software which allows key strokes and searches to be monitored for individual students based on their login. It also alerts District personnel of certain searches. This software has been beneficial to the District in its highest priority in keeping students and the community safe.”
Pagourtzis defense attorney in the criminal case also weighed on the DA’s statement.
“Today’s statement by District Attorney Jack Roady highlights the problem the criminal defense team has been warning of since DA Roady first let it be known that he was reversing his position and would agree to release SOME of the evidence from the criminal investigation for use in the civil trial, with a criminal trial still pending. The DA released raw data from the investigation, but not the federal law enforcement offense reports which would have provided context and sourcing to the material, and has refused the civil defendants’ requests for that information. Now the DA has chosen to publicly comment on said evidence, apparently attempting to cast some doubt as to the source material clearly described on the label his office provided, and to do so in the middle of a trial in which the evidence has been admitted by agreement by all parties, and is in front of the jury. The danger of a mistrial and that the victims and defendants will all have to do this again at some point has been raised by this action. The DA could have solved this problem in either of two ways, by withholding all criminal evidence, or providing all criminal evidence. A middle course was attempted, over the defense’s objections, with the results we see here. Both the plaintiffs and the defenses have been prejudiced by this course, and the integrity and fairness of the process must now be questioned,” defense Nick Poehl wrote to KPRC 2.
KPRC 2 has reached out to Laird for further comment, but has not received a response. It is not known if this will impact the trial, which resumes on Monday.
From our previous reporting:
During the civil trial, defense attorney Lori Laird told jurors during her opening statement that Pagourtzis did some of his online research on a school computer and no red flags were raised.
“You did hear some previews here that Dimitri (Pagourtzis) had some disturbing material on his computer, but what is far more disturbing than that is what was on the high school computer. We received a data dump with the most disturbing searches that you’ve ever seen. Searching school shootings, searching suicide, searching military combat gear, searching weapons. Not one time did the school say, ‘there’s a problem we need to call the parents,’” Laird told jurors. “He’s searching suicide web pages, he’s searching school shootings, he’s looking at weapons and this is happening on a school computer.”
When KPRC 2 Investigates asked Santa Fe Independent School District officials for a response, we received a written statement from Asst. Superintendent Jenny Davenport on Thursday.
“As the community knows, Santa Fe ISD has content blocking and filtering software on its technology. Not once has any investigating agency informed the District that our devices were used in this manner. If we are ever alerted that a student has violated our Acceptable Use Policy, administrators follow proper protocols to ensure the safety of students and staff (including communication with parents and necessary stakeholders). We find this allegation in the opening statement, which is not part of testimony under oath, to be lacking credibility,” Davenport wrote.
After received Santa Fe ISD’s statement KPRC 2 Investigates spoke again with Laird.
“The (Galveston County) District Attorney’s Office provided all parties involved in this lawsuit with a large amount of data entitled “Santa Fe High School computer dump.” It is our understanding this information was extracted from a Santa Fe High School computer. If anyone doubts that, they are welcome to come down to have a look and speak with the District Attorney,” said Laird.
The parents of the charged gunman are being sued by family members of those killed during the mass shooting and survivors. The suit claims Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Maria Kosmetatos should have done more to recognize their son’s mental illness and prevent him from getting his hands on guns in the family’s home. Plaintiff’s attorney Clint McGuire said Dimitrios Pagourtzis used his father’s shotgun and his mother’s .38-caliber handgun to carrying out the mass shooting.
Defense attorneys argued the parents had no idea the depths of their son’s mental illness and no red flags were raised by school officials.