Emotions were high and the courtroom heavy with grief as testimonies began in the civil trial against Dimitrios Pagourtzis, the student accused of the Santa Fe High School shooting. Family members of victims, some unable to stay seated, rushed out of the court, tears obscuring the day that was supposed to inch them closer to some form of closure, as reported by ABC13.
The trial opened with harrowing accounts from inside the school during the rampage, including testimony from a freshman who hid in a closet, calling her mother and police while the shooter sang "Another One Bites the Dust,", neglecting no detail, and Rosie Yanas, who lost her son in the massacre, told ABC13, "We have to relive it, not because we want to, but because we have to. If we didn't, where would we be right now? We'd be sitting at home with no answers, twiddling our thumbs. We refuse those kind of answers." Flo Rice, a substitute teacher injured in the attack, echoed the sentiment.
As the civil proceedings unfold, a former Galveston County sheriff's deputy's testimony shed light on the police response, or the lack thereof, to the shooting. Sergeant Brent Cooley recounted waiting for backup before approaching the room where the shooter was barricaded, with these moments scrutinized amid questions on whether more immediate action could've saved lives, in a narrative detailed by The Houston Chronicle.
On the other hand, some families, such as Rhonda Hart, whose daughter was killed in the shooting, sought to shift focus, "I'm not here to talk about what the police did or didn't do, I'm here to talk about the parents who didn't lock up their guns," she told The Houston Chronicle. The accountability of the shooter's parents is being called into question regarding the accessibility of the weapons and their son's untreated mental illness.
