As Santa Fe, Tx., searches for answers about a mass shooting by a 17-year-old student, an emotional debate has emerged over bullying at the high school where the rampage took place, reports the Wall Street Journal. The alleged shooter’s father, Antonios Pagourtzis, said his son—a quiet former football player known for wearing a trench coat—faced bullying and said he believed that was part of the trigger for the May 18 attack, which left 10 dead and 13 wounded. With students returning to school Tuesday for the first time since the shooting, some say bullying has long been a problem at this rural Texas town’s lone high school. Others don’t recall suspected shooter Dimitrios Pagourtzis being picked on by his peers.
Grace Johnson, an 18-year-old senior who sat next to Pagourtzis each day, recalled him as always joking and “a pretty normal student.” Johnson doesn’t think bullying is pervasive at Santa Fe High School. In many mass school-shooting cases in which the accused is a student, allegations have surfaced that the shooter was bullied, but whether there is a clear link between the two issues is the subject of contention. An analysis by the Journal found that in 17 of 33 school-shooting cases since 1990 that resulted in at least three victims dead or injured, the accused shooters had a history of being bullied. Dr. Nadine Connell of the Center for Crime and Justice Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas said her research hasn’t shown a connection between bullying and mass school shootings. Some experts noted that kids are bullied without resorting to extreme violence like a mass shooting. John Nicoletti, a police psychologist who also works with schools, said school shooters often feel a “perceived injustice” or feel victimized in some way.