Accused Santa Fe Shooter's Lawyer Wants To Move Trial

SANTA FE, TX — An attorney for accused Santa Fe High School shooter Dimitrios Pagourtzis has filed a motion asking that the trial, set for later this year, be moved from Galveston County.

Defense attorney Nicholas Poehl filed a motion Tuesday asking for a change of venue, citing pretrial publicity will prevent his client from receiving a fair trial in Galveston County.

Pagourtzis was a junior at Santa Fe High School, when he allegedly walked into the school on May 18, 2018, and began shooting at students and staff members.

Investigators said Pagourtzis hid a shotgun and a semi-automatic handgun in his trench coat and shot those students and staff he did not like and left others unharmed who would tell his story.

The shooting left 10 dead. Those victims were:

• Jared Black
• Shana Fisher
• Christian Garcia
• Aaron McLeod
• Glenda Perkins
• Angelique Ramirez
• Sabika Sheikh
• Christopher Stone
• Cynthia Tisdale
• Kimberly Vaughn

The shooting also wounded 13 others, including school resource officer John Barnes, who’d been on the job less than a year after his retirement from the Houston Police Department.

Pagourtzis has been in solitary confinement since his arrest and is still undergoing psychiatric evaluations.

He is expected to be in court for a hearing on Jan. 28, and the judge could rule at that time whether a change of venue is needed for a fair trial.

(For more news and information like this, subscribe to Patch for free. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app; download the free Patch Android app here.)

Image: GCSO

Send your news tips and story ideas to bryan.kirk@patch.com