Family of Santa Fe High School shooting victim sues alleged gunman's parents: 'No other parent should ever have to experience this unbearable grief'
Days before Sabika Sheikh would have turned 18, her parents filed a lawsuit against the parents of her alleged assailant.
Sheikh, who came to the U.S. as an exchange student from Pakistan, was shot dead in May when Dimitrios Pagourtzis allegedly opened fire at Santa Fe High School in Texas.
Her parents, Abdul Aziz and Farah Naz, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Pagourtzis’s parents. Aziz and Naz believe the suspected shooter’s parents, Rose Marie Kosmetatos and Antonios Pagourtzis, “knew their son was experiencing extreme emotional distress but failed to take basic steps to responsibly store and prevent him from accessing their firearms,” a press release from Everytown for Gun Safety, which is representing Sheikh’s parents, states.
Sheikh’s parents filed this lawsuit along with other family members of students killed in the May shooting. They all feel the suspected shooter’s parents “negligently and irresponsibly stored their firearms.” The suit also states that the shooter’s parents “failed to respond to and address warning signs that their son posed a risk to others.”
Sheikh had been in the U.S. for almost a year and was set to return to Pakistan in three weeks when she was fatally shot at Santa Fe High School. She would have celebrated her 18th birthday on Dec. 18.
“This mass shooting was enabled by the Defendants’ negligent actions,” the lawsuit states. It claims that the younger Pagourtzis exhibited “warning signs” in the months before the shooting and that his parents noticed this yet “did nothing to address” it. It points out that after the shooting, his father went on a Greek radio show and revealed that he had been worried about his son for weeks before the shooting, “as if I knew something would happen.”
“Any reasonable parent would have ensured that their child, who was exhibiting signs of emotional distress and violent fantasies, did not have access to weapons that he could use to kill others (or himself),” the lawsuit argues. “Had the Defendants responsibly stored their firearms, [Sheikh] would be alive, along with all of her classmates and teachers.” Instead, he allegedly killed eight students and two substitute teachers and injured 13 others.
“No other parent should ever have to experience this unbearable grief,” Aziz and Naz write in the press release. “Sabika’s picture is in front of our eyes every single moment and her voice and laughter echo in our ears. For a mother and a father, this trauma and mourning stay until their last breath.”
Pagourtzis is in custody at Galveston County Jail on murder charges.
Everytown for Gun Safety is determined to bring this family some relief. “What happened at Santa Fe High School is a tragic reminder of why responsible gun storage is so critical,” Molly Thomas-Jensen, counsel for Everytown for Gun Safety, says in the press release. “We’ll do all we can to deliver some measure of justice for Sabika’s family — and to prevent future tragedies by highlighting the deadly risks of irresponsible gun storage.”
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
Mom with ‘gut feeling’ stops school shooter before planned attack
Good Samaritan drives mother of school shooting victim to see son before he dies
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