Up to 10 dead in south Texas school shooting

Between eight and 10 people have been killed in a shooting by a student at a Texas high school, say police.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told reporters the majority of the dead at Santa Fe High School were students.

The suspect in custody has been identified as 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis,.

Police said that explosive devices had been found at the school, which is 40 miles (65km) south of Houston, and in surrounding areas.

The death toll makes this the deadliest school shooting since the one in February at Parkland, Florida. That attack left 17 dead and spawned a nationwide youth-led campaign for gun control.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said there were “between eight and 10 people” killed, most of them students at Santa Fe High School in Galveston County, south of Houston. Some faculty members were also killed in the shooting, which occurred before 8 a.m., he said.

Gonzalez said authorities were still searching the campus to make sure there were no other people hidden, and he warned they could still find other people injured or killed. He also said the death toll could change.

Because explosives were at and near the scene of the shooting, school officials urged people in the community to be wary of potentially suspicious devices.

“There have been explosive devices found in the high school and surrounding areas adjacent to the high school,” Walter Braun, chief of the Santa Fe Independent School District Police Department, said in a news conference.

District officials said law enforcement officers were “in the process of rendering them safe,” adding that the school had been evacuated.