SANTA FE, Texas — A Galveston County jury will begin deliberations Monday in the civil trial for the 2018 Santa Fe School shooting. Eight students and two teachers were killed and 13 others injured in that tragedy six years ago.
On Friday, both sides in the civil trial against the shooter's parents gave their closing arguments, after which they spoke to reporters, saying that they feel confident in their cases that they closed Friday.
Relatives of victims, at points, were crying during closing and had to leave the courtroom. The father of the shooter also got emotional during a portion of the closing arguments.
The civil trial focuses on the liability of Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Marie Kosmetatos, the parents of the shooter, Dimitrios Pagourtzis.
Plaintiffs argued there were signs in Dimitrios's life that the parents should have caught in order to prevent the shooting. They are aiming to push the jury for a significant amount of liability, but defendants say it's not reasonable to place liability on the parents for the actions of their son.
"It was premeditated by Dimitrios Pagourtzis," plaintiff attorney Clint McGuire said. "He acted out of rage and revenge, and his parents had every opportunity. There was red flag after red flag to prevent this from occurring, and they didn't take any steps to do so."
"I don't know how anybody can call this red flags," said Lori Laird, who represented the parents. "It's just trying to heap calls on the burning hearts of parents that are already suffering because their child had a mental psychotic break, did an unspeakable, terrible things."
A criminal trial for Dimitrios Pagourtzis is on hold indefinitely after he was ruled mentally incompetent. Jurors went home for the weekend and will resume deliberations Monday morning at 9 a.m.