Santa Fe High School students returned to campus Tuesday for the first time since the May 18 shooting that killed 10 people and injured 13 others, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Eight students and two teachers were killed in the gunfire while student Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, has been charged with capital murder in the case.
Law enforcement alleges that Pagourtzis, who remains jailed, entered campus with a Remington 870 shotgun, a .38-caliber pistol and a few faulty, homemade bombs during the incident, the Chronicle noted.
"It's going to be tough, coming back for the first time," Lidia Cleveland told the Chronicle about her son returning to the school, located south of Houston. "But he needs to face it and try to move on."
In a show of support, hundreds of people lined state Highway 6 in Santa Fe on Tuesday morning for students and staff as they traveled back to campus, according to the Galveston County Daily News.
Supporters began lining up about 6 a.m., and more began lining the streets in the hours that followed, traveling from nearby Alvin, Dickinson, Pearland as well as Houston, the Daily News said.
"We came to support them for their first day going back, so that they feel that there were other people there for them," Sophie Colvert, 16, a sophomore from Houston's Kingwood High School, told the Daily News.
The newspaper said police vehicles from the Galveston Police Department, the Houston Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety were all seen at the high school during the morning hours.
Teachers had returned to campus last Wednesday and graduation for seniors will be held on Friday, the Chronicle said. According to the Santa Fe Independent School District, counselors will be on campus through Friday to provide services to students and staff.
While the school reopens, Pagourtzis's attorneys Nick Poehl and Robert Barfield told KTRK-TV last week that their client claims not to remember very much about the shooting and Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset confirmed that he was currently under suicide watch at the jail.
The attorneys said, according to the television station, that they are working to get a mental evaluation of their client.
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