We trusted this country family of Pakistani teen killed in Texas shooting join lawsuit US news
Sabika Sheikh, 17, died in May attack – and family hope to make gun owners and those who ignore warning signs accountable
Sabika Sheikh, 17, died in May attack – and family hope to make gun owners and those who ignore warning signs accountable
Sabika Sheikh's excitement is palpable in the two-minute video, her brown eyes wide and her hands fluttering as she speaks.
"Hi guys, I'm Sabika," she says. Cheery and energetic, the 17-year-old had made the video to describe the moment her parents told her she was a finalist to be a youth ambassador in a US state department-sponsored study exchange that would take her thousands of miles away from her home in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, for a year.
"I didn't believe it," Sheikh said. "They came into my room, and I was squealing, jumping like a madman. I prayed to God and thanked him a lot. Seeing those proud smiles on my parents' faces, that was the best moment of my life."
In the video, Sheikh speaks in the chattering cadence of a teenage girl. Just a little more than a year after she posted that video on YouTube, Sheikh was one of 10 killed in a mass shooting at a Texas high school.
On Wednesday, days before what should have been Sheikh's 18th birthday, her parents joined the family members of some of the others killed in the May shooting in filing a lawsuit against the 17-year-old suspect's parents, Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Marie Kosmetatos. The suit alleges the parents were not only negligent in allowing their son to gain access to a shotgun and a revolver legally owned by the father, but in failing to respond to warning signs that their son posed a risk to others.
An attorney for the suspect's parents had previously denied all allegations in an earlier court filing, before Sheikh's parents joined the lawsuit, arguing that the "mere fact of paternity or maternity does not make a parent liable to third parties for the torts of his or her minor child."
But in adding their voices to the fight, Sheikh's family is ensuring that the gun violence and mass shootings that have become a tragically American phenomenon stay firmly in the international eye.
"We trusted this country more than I think we should have," said Shaheera Jalil Albasit, Sheikh's cousin. "We sent Sabika here as a guest. She was here on a cultural exchange, and she experienced the worst of the culture: the culture of gun violence."
Sheikh arrived in the United States in August 2017 as a youth ambassador for the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Program. It was her first solo trip, and it was to be the longest amount of time she was to be away from her family, her cousin said.
She was placed with a host family in Santa Fe, Texas, a semi-rural area about 30 miles from central Houston. She enrolled in Santa Fe high school for the school year, where she got to experience typical American teenage life, dressing up as a pirate for Halloween, going to prom with friends, volunteering at the library, and keeping score at high school baseball games.
"She was really thinking of this opportunity as the step a woman would take to show people that girls can travel alone, make friends across religions, across cultures, and do great things," Albasit said. "I think Sabika was thinking about that. I think that was her aspiration, coming back and sharing stories about what she did here. She was also excited about sharing the positives about Pakistan. She was very much into the food of Pakistan and everything about it."
Though Sheikh loved her time in Texas and grew close with her host family, she was still a kid and, in the last few weeks, "she was really missing home", Albasit said. "She kept talking about going home to her mother, and going home. She started a countdown. Every day, she'd send a message home to family and friends in Pakistan."
On the morning of 18 May, Sabika posted one last Snapchat story: just 19 more days.
At 7.30am, the shooter, a fellow student, walked into the four-room arts complex of the high school and opened fire, killing eight teenagers and two teachers. In addition, 13 people were injured, some seriously.
According to court documents, Sheikh and her classmates ran into a supply closet, where she hid behind a dresser. "The shooter knew that several people were hiding in the closets, and he began shooting into the closets," the filing reads. "He taunted the students who were hiding while he shot at them."
Sheikh sustained nine gunshot wounds. The suspect, Dimitrios Pagourtzis, was arrested and charged with capital murder but cannot face the death penalty because of his age.
Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Marie Kosmetatos "knew that something was gravely wrong with their son", but took no steps to get him help or prevent him from accessing firearms, the lawsuit alleges.
Antonios Pagourtzis allegedly told a Greek radio station in the days following the shooting that he believed his son had been teased and bullied at school, and that he had been worried enough about his son's well-being in the two weeks leading up to the shooting that he had stayed home from work to be with him. "As if I knew something would happen," he allegedly told the radio station.
The shooter had a fascination with the Columbine shooting, and went out of his way to dress like the shooters: wearing a full-length black trench coat and combat boots to school – even in the Texas heat.
He was also fascinated by guns, in particular guns used by the Nazis in the second world war. On Facebook, he posted an image of a jacket with Nazi and fascist insignia, as well as artwork inspired by an electronic musician with a following among neo-Nazi groups.
The day after the shooting, the family said in a statement they were "as shocked and confused as anyone else".
"While we remain mostly in the dark about the specifics of yesterday's tragedy, what we have learned from media reports seems incompatible with the boy we love," the statement read. "We share the public's hunger for answers as to why this happened, and will await the outcome of the investigation before speaking about these events."
Sheikh's family hopes that this lawsuit will force accountability on not just gun owners, but on to people who ignore warning signs in their loved ones, even though they know of the risk they might pose to others.
"We believe that the shooter's parents had multiple opportunities to stop what had happened, and they did not engage in anything," Albasit said. "The motivation behind this lawsuit is that any gun owner in the US must feel an obligation when it comes to their weapons, not just in storing them safely, but in speaking up when they believe that someone around them is at risk of harming themselves or people around them."
Sheikh's death, Albasit said, "sent shockwaves through Pakistan and sent a message that the US has this problem and not much has been done about it."
"After what happened to Sabika, I feel a profound sense of threat to my well-being because of the gun issues here," said Albasit, who is a third-year grad student at George Washington university in Washington, DC. "It's a very small world when it comes to who is impacted by gun violence in the US. As an international student, the extent and expanse of this problem really shocks me."
Sheikh had big dreams for the future, wanting to become both an entrepreneur and a diplomat. Though time has passed, Albasit said it doesn't get easier thinking of all that Sheikh wanted to do and all that she cannot.
"There were people waiting for her, who are still waiting for her," she said.
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