santa fe school shooting
Ten candles, roses and bibles are displayed on a table during a prayer vigil following a shooting at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, on Friday, May 18, 2018. Seventeen-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis is charged with capital murder in the shooting rampage. A judge denied him bond at a court hearing Friday evening. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

In March, federal prosecutors announced that they had no plans to file federal charges against the Santa Fe High School shooter. As Houston Public Media reported,

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas says prosecutors and FBI agents met with the victims and family members Tuesday and that no federal charges will be filed at this time. A spokeswoman declined to say whether Pagourtzis might face future federal prosecution.

He’s facing 10 state murder charges for the May, 2018 shooting.

Something changed in the intervening two weeks, however, because the shooter’s attorney announced today that the feds plan to charge his client after all.

Here’s the AP’s report . . .

HOUSTON (AP) — An attorney for an 18-year-old accused of fatally shooting 10 people at a Texas high school says federal prosecutors plan to file charges against the former student after they had previously indicated they would not.

Attorney Nick Poehl says Dimitrios Pagourtzis was taken into federal custody Monday and was set to appear in federal court in Galveston at 1 p.m.

Poehl says he doesn’t know what federal charges were filed.

Pagourtzis has been charged with capital murder in state court for the May 18, 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School in Galveston County.

Last month, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas said no federal charges would likely be filed.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment.

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26 COMMENTS

  1. Kinda hard to prosecute a corpse. Silly waste of federal time. Let Texas fry him and be done with it.

    • I was thinking along the same lines.

      The only thing a fed prosecution does at this point is give him more opportunities to file appeals and delay an execution if Texas decides to pursue a death penalty case and secured a conviction.

      • Chances are he’s going to vanish into the federal system, get sheepdipped, and do whatever they tell him from then on. Similar to these guys a few weeks ago.
        https://taskandpurpose.com/americans-detained-haiti
        I can see no reason for the feds to take custody, other than to save him from the State level prosecution. They can just say he’ll be in federal prison for life, satisfying the State of Texas, and then they can extort whatever they desire from him, on threat of throwing him back to Texas. Simple. The Haiti bunch has already been ship dipped at least once, probably more.

    • Does seem like a waste of resources.

      “Should we file federal charges?”
      “Nah, the state is already handling it”
      “Which state?”
      “Texas.”

      Yeah they can probably handle it.

    • Much as I hate to admit it, the Chinese have the right idea r.e. execution: +- 39-cent 9mm cartridge in medulla.

      Three-strikes — jail.

      Three appeals — Bye!

    • He was 17 at the time of the crime, and under Texas law he cannot get the death penalty if the crime was committed at that age. Which is exactly why the families of the killed and injured wanted him tried federally, so he could do more time. Under the state laws he would be eligible for parole in 40 years.

  2. Texas justice…you want that well done or crispy? Sometime in the future, preponderance of the evidence permitting, Texas will be the first state to administer capital punishment to a corporation. F-K-A

  3. Problem with Texas is that there are people on death row who have been there for decades. We need a limit on number of appeals and that folks on death row need to be executed with only a few years after sentencing.
    might help if people accused of capital crimes, must have provided DNA samples to speed up the exculpatory investigations.

      • I believe a death sentence should have automatic appeal and a complete review of the trial proceedings, all evidence presented, and any available evidence not presented. If there is any doubt as to guilt, then the verdict should not have been “guilty” in the first place, although sometimes there is evidence that the jury did not see. The appeal and review should be completed within one year and the execution carried out if not overturned.

      • There have certainly been cases where an appeal was crucial in stopping the execution of an innocent man. That said, lawyers have corrupted the system so that the stays and appeals process has nothing to do with guilt or innocence most of the time anymore. They’ll file motions and processes just to buy another year. They use the system against itself. It’s not hard to become cynical about the entire thing when so much of that happens.

      • Do you feel that way knowing that we have undoubtedly executed several innocent men?

  5. Are you all forgetting that Texas is SLOWLY becoming Liberal, Houston and Dallas are becoming as bad as any other Liberal city in conservative states. In 10 years time when they have another 20 million Illegals voting in elections they could rescind the death penalty.

    • And then there is AUSTIN . . . . About as liberal / flakey as is possible to get in TX.

      • You are wrong !!!! Austin is about as liberal / flakey as is possible to get anywhere in the universe. Most residents of Austin are puketards. They have been moving into the surrounding counties and destroying everything they touch. May a plague of flesh-eating cockroaches devour the whole place.

  7. Waste of taxpayer money. There’s no statute of limitations on murder. If the state charges somehow fall through it’s a different story.

    If 10 counts of murder in Texas can’t do you in, federal charges won’t.

  9. The sad seeming paths that this country adopted makes myself and my wife ever so glad that we avoided having children.

  11. While it might be shocking to people outside Texas, DA’s are no longer pursuing the DP in most Capital Murder. (1) It is incredibly expensive to take a DP case (remember the county pays defense and prosecution costs. (2) Texas juries are no longer a sure thing on DP cases.

    Given the perps age and mental problems, the DA might have decided to let the Feds pay for his upkeep forever.

  12. I cannot understand why on earth the LEO who was wounded by this cretin didn’t terminate him and save the taxpayers a lot of money.

  13. I am quoting the scum sucking whore of an attorney who represented my marijunna bootlegging (300+ plant grow) tenant who fired 2 rounds from a 12 gauge shotgun (probably loaded with slugs) at my son, “12 gauge shotgun? That’s smalle caliber, isn’t?”

    An imbecile judge who brings to his courtroom the same profound discernment that enabled him to remain oblivious to his wife’s spectacularly flagrant adulteries until Amanda Marshall got herself arrested for stalking her boyfriend, accepted the Elmer Fudd defense and gave him a free pass.

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