Judge rules school shooting suspect incompetent for trial

GALVESTON, Texas – A judge has ruled the teenager accused of fatally shooting 10 people at a Texas high school mentally incompetent to stand trial.

State District Judge John Ellison ordered Dimitrios Pagourtzis to be committed to a state mental facility for up to four months.

Ellison ruled Friday in Galveston after three experts — one for the defence, one appointed by the court and one picked by prosecutors — found him mentally incompetent to stand trial for the May 2018 shootings at Santa Fe High School.

Ellison’s order says Pagourtzis now lacks sufficient mental resources to participate in his own defence.

The ruling postpones indefinitely the youth’s capital murder trial that had been scheduled to begin Feb. 18. He’ll need to pass another competency review before standing trial.