The communities of Santa Fe, Texas, and Butler, Pennsylvania, have a lot in common.

Butler is a traditional railroad town of about 13,000 people, situated on the outskirts of an industrial city (Pittsburgh).

Santa Fe is a traditional railroad town of about 13,000 people, situated on the outskirts of an industrial city (Houston).

Butler takes pride in being a faith community. So does Santa Fe.

Today, however, there is one tragic distinction. Just four days ago, eight students and two substitute teachers were fatally shot at Santa Fe High School. Thirteen others were wounded.

A 17-year-old suspect has been jailed on capital murder charges. Authorities say Dimitrios Pagourtzis opened fire with a shotgun and .38-caliber handgun inside an art classroom. Galveston County Judge Mark Henry said police exchanged rounds with Pagourtzis “for quite a while” before he surrendered a half-hour after the first reports of a shooter on campus.

Since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, school shootings have occurred across America with troubling frequency. It’s equally troubling that, in most cases, the pathology of the shootings has been nearly identical.

It’s too soon to say, but Santa Fe is likely to fit this template, too, including:

- The rampage was planned. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said information contained in journals on Pagourtzis’ computer and cell phone suggest that “not only did he want to commit the shooting, but he wanted to commit suicide after.”

- The shooter studied and copied previous shooters, including Columbine killers Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. One classmate said of Pagourtzis: “I don’t think he was normal. I think he was really strange and quiet. I wasn’t surprised when I heard it was him. ... He always wears this weird trench coat and kind of looks like a psychopath.”

- Retaliation for bullying may have been a motive. Police said Pagourtzis told them he did not shoot classmates he liked “so he could have his story told.”

- The suspect apparently planted explosive devices at the school, at home and in his vehicle. All but one of those devices were found to be nonfuctional.

- The teen did not own his guns, They belonged to his father. It was unclear whether the parent knew the son had taken them.

It seems clear from their reactions that Pagourtzis’ parents were shocked by their son’s atrocity. In a statement released Saturday the family said: “We are gratified by the public comments made by other Santa Fe High School students that show Dimitri as we know him: a smart, quiet, sweet boy. 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 governor said there is nothing at this time that would indicate there were missed warning signs, as in the case of Devin Patrick Kelley, who killed 26 at a Sutherland Springs, Texas, church in November 2017, or Nikolas Cruz, who is charged with killing 17 people at a Parkland, Fla., high school in February.

Gov. Abbott seemed to amplify frustrations about the imperceptibility of any warning signs.

“Unlike Parkland, unlike Sutherland Springs, there weren’t those kinds of warning signs,” Abbott said “Here the red flag warnings were either nonexistent or very imperceptible.”

Santa Fe Independent School District has its own police department, whose web site states: “Our district has had a solid crisis management plan in place which includes the handling of active shooter incidents. ... Rest assured, the Santa Fe ISD Police Department’s No. 1 priority is to proactively protect and safeguard our students and staff, and mitigate any potential threats to our school family.”

We would like to think that Butler School District’s resource officers take the same pride in the work they do. We know they do it well.

Since mid-February, Campus Drive between the senior high and intermediate high schools has been closed to through-traffic during school hours as an added safety measure. The department has an active online/social media investigations division and looks proactively to prevent problems before they come on campus.

These all are laudable preventive measures. Santa Fe has taken all of them. So has Butler.