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Explosive devices found with the suspected Texas gunman not capable of detonating

A woman pauses at a table with 10 candles, roses and bibles displayed during a prayer vigil following a deadly shooting at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, on Friday, May 18, 2018. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

The Latest on the mass shooting at a Texas high school (all times local):

11:50 a.m.

A Texas official says explosive devices found with the suspected gunman at a high school near Houston weren’t capable of detonating.

Galveston County Judge Mark Henry said Saturday that authorities found a group of carbon dioxide canisters taped together, and a pressure cooker with an alarm clock and nails inside. But he says the canisters had no detonation device and the pressure cooker had no explosive material.

Henry also says police exchanged “a lot of firepower” with 17-year-old Dmitrios Pagourtzis (puh-GOR’-cheez) before the Santa Fe High School student surrendered.

The shooting took place in an art room Friday morning on the roughly 1,400-student campus.

Pagourtzis in jailed on murder charges.

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11 a.m.

Pakistani businessman Abdul Aziz Sheikh says he learned of the tragedy unfolding at a high school in Texas when he turned on the TV after iftar, the fast-breaking meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Realizing it was the school where his 18-year-old daughter, Sabika, was an exchange student, he flipped through channels trying to learn more and left her messages, but she didn’t reply.

He called his daughter’s friends, but they weren’t responding either. It was only when he reached the exchange program that he got the bad news: Sabika Khan was among the 10 people killed in Friday’s mass shooting at Santa Fe High School, southeast of Houston.

Fighting back tears, her father told The Associated Press on Saturday in Karachi that Sabika was due home in about three weeks for the holiday marking the end of Ramadan. He says he thought she would be safe in the U.S.

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9:30 a.m.

The head of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee says the teenager suspected of killing 10 people and wounding others at a Texas high school collapsed while giving himself up, avoiding a police confrontation.

Republican Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, a former federal prosecutor, says 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis (puh-GOR’-cheez) “sort of fell to the ground and surrendered.”

McCaul said late Friday that Pagourtzis wore a trench coat despite the sweltering temperatures earlier that day “to hide the shotgun and .38-caliber underneath” during the attack at Santa Fe High School near Houston.

He says authorities recovered a couple of explosive devices at the school and “several” in Pagourtzis’ vehicle and home, and that they’ve been sent for testing to the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.

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8:40 a.m.

A hospital treating three of the people injured in the mass shooting at a Texas high school says one patient, who is a minor, is in good condition and the other two patients are in critical condition.

The University of Texas Medical Branch tweeted the update Saturday.

Hospitals on Friday reported treating a total of 14 people for injuries related to the shooting.

Ten people, mostly students, were killed in the attack Friday at the high school in Santa Fe, about 30 miles southeast of Houston. A 17-year-old student, Dimitrios Pagourtzis (puh-GOR’-cheez), has been arrested in the attack on murder charges.

The shooting was the deadliest school attack since 17 were killed in February at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

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12:01 a.m.

Investigators say a 17-year-old admitted he went on a shooting rampage at a Southeast Texas high school that left 10 dead, most of them students.

According to a probable cause affidavit, Dimitrios Pagourtzis (puh-GOR’-cheez) told investigators that when he opened fire at Santa Fe High School on Friday morning, “he did not shoot students he did like so he could have his story told.”

Authorities have not offered any motive. Pagourtzis is being held without bond at the Galveston County Jail.

Sophomore Zachary Muehe told The New York Times that Pagourtzis entered his art classroom armed with a shotgun and was wearing a trench coat and a shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Born to Kill.”

The shooting was the deadliest school attack since 17 were killed in February at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

 

(Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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