Following the devastating school shooting that took place on Friday at Santa Fe High School, the shooter’s motives have been brought into question. 17-year-old junior Dimitrios Pagourtzis opened fire and killed 10 people and injured 13 more. Now, one of the victims’ mothers is speaking out about the shooter’s possible motivation.
In a Facebook message to the Los Angeles Times, Sadie Rodriguez said her daughter, Shana Fisher, had “4 months of problems from this boy… He kept making advances on her and she repeatedly told him no.” She explained that as Dimitrios became more aggressive, Shana eventually stood up for herself, embarrassing him in the process. “A week later he opens fire on everyone he didn’t like,” she added.
Though the LAT was not able to corroborate what Shana’s mother said, her story has once again sparked discussions on toxic masculinity. “The shooting in Santa Fe, Texas is yet another tragic example of how easy access to guns by angry boys and men is a threat to the lives of girls and women,” Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, told Refinery 29. “American women are nearly 16 times more likely to be killed with a gun than women in other high-income countries, and over 50 women in the US are fatally shot by current and former intimate partners each month. Every nation is home to toxic masculinity, but only America fuels it with easy access to guns.”