SANTA FE, Tex.: A 17-year-old student armed with a shotgun and a pistol went on rampage on Friday morning at his school killing 10 and wounding ten of his fellow students before surrendering to Police.
Isabelle Laymance, 15, was in art class, drawing geometric shapes, when she heard gunshots. She froze for a moment, then she ran to a back door leading to a patio, but it was locked. She and seven other students barricaded themselves in a supply closet that connected two art classrooms. She lay on the floor and called police, then called her mother, whispering "I love you" while holding a friend's hand.
They shushed each other, hoping to avoid detection. The trenchcoat-clad gunman - whom police identified as student Dimitrios Pagourtzis - came into the first art classroom and began shooting.
He knew that students were hiding in the supply closet, Laymance said.
"He said 'Surprise,' and then he started shooting, and he killed one or two people. And he shot a girl in the leg. In the closet. He shot through the window," she said.
"We blocked the doors with ceramic makers, and he kept on trying to get in, and he kept on shooting inside the closet."
The gunman kept shooting, swearing and yelling. He shot a police officer who approached, then engaged other officers in discussion, offering to surrender. "He kept saying, 'If I come out, don't shoot me.' They didn't shoot him, they just put him in handcuffs," she said.
Pagourtzis, whom students described as a quiet loner, was held Friday without bond at the Galveston County jail, charged with capital murder and aggravated assault on a peace officer.
It was unclear what motivated the attack, as authorities said it came without any obvious warning.
The two guns used in the shooting belong to Pagourtzis' father, according to Gov. Greg.
Among those killed was Sabika Sheikh, a Pakistani exchange student studying in the US facilitated by the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) programme.