Santa Fe School Shooting Hero Denied Disability Pay, Spurs Legislation

A shotgun blast shattered John Barnes' right elbow and severed his brachial artery on May 18, 2018, the moment he stepped in front of the gunman at Santa Fe High School. Barnes, a retired Houston Police Department officer who had been with Santa Fe ISD's police force for just four months, was the first to confront Dimitrios Pagourtzis. He flat-lined twice that day and was treated at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston in critical condition. A second Santa Fe ISD officer dragged Barnes to safety and applied a tourniquet; a post-operative staph infection later required additional surgery on his arm. The shooting ended with 10 people dead, eight of them students, and forced Barnes to medically retire from law enforcement.

In early February 2025, the federal government denied his disability claim.

The Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance rejected Barnes' application under the Public Safety Officers' Benefits program, a one-time payment currently worth $461,656 that Congress established in 1976 for officers permanently disabled in the line of duty. Barnes had applied around 2019. The answer took nearly seven years.

"What is so frustrating is to have to wait that long for an answer is ridiculous," Barnes said.

The denial exposed a layered gap in how the system covers officers caught between employers. Because Barnes had logged only four months with Santa Fe ISD police at the time of the shooting, he did not qualify for the district's full disability benefits. Workers' compensation rated him 30% disabled; he received $50,000 above that settlement, money that has since run out. His HPD pension is taxed.

Rep. Randy Weber, who represents Texas' 14th Congressional District covering Galveston County, and Sen. Ted Cruz responded by introducing the Officer John Barnes Act, which would require the DOJ to resolve PSOB claims within 270 days. Cruz also sent a formal letter to BJA Director Karhlton F. Moore, citing a PSOB report that showed 1,432 claims pending across the program.

"Officer John Barnes was critically wounded during the Santa Fe High School shooting and flat-lined twice while protecting students and teachers," Cruz said. "Nearly eight years later, he is still waiting for the benefits he earned through his sacrifice."

The legislation expanded into the bipartisan Officer John Barnes and Chief Michael Ansbro Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program Expansion Act of 2026, co-sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Rep. Dave Min of California. The bill would extend partial PSOB eligibility to permanently disabled officers currently excluded from the program, a category that covers Barnes. The Fraternal Order of Police has endorsed it.

Barnes is far from the only one waiting. An Associated Press investigation found more than 120 PSOB claims had been pending for over five years, with roughly a dozen stretching past a decade. The DOJ's Office of Inspector General identified inadequate application guidance as a primary driver of the delays, and recent expansions of PSOB eligibility covering COVID-19, cancer, and other causes have deepened the backlog further.

For school districts and police agencies across the Houston region, Barnes' case signals a specific vulnerability: officers who are new to a post when catastrophe strikes may fall outside every benefits threshold at once, leaving a federal program as their only safety net, and that net now carries 1,432 unresolved claims.