Maryland high school shooting: Two students injured, suspected gunman dead

GREAT MILLS, Md. – Gunfire rang out at Great Mills High School in Southern Maryland as classes began Tuesday morning, the latest school shooting to rattle parents and set off another round of the national debate over gun control.

The suspected gunman, 17-year-old student Austin Wyatt Rollins, was pronounced dead hours later at a local hospital. Two students were being treated for their injuries – with one in critical condition – and a school resource officer who fired at the gunman was unharmed.

“This is what we train for. This is what we prepare for and this is what we pray we never have to do,” said St. Mary’s County Sheriff Tim Cameron. “And on this day we realized our worst nightmare that our greatest asset – our children – were attacked in a bastion of safety and security, one of our schools.”

The entire incident played out in less than a minute at 7:55 a.m. in a hallway at Great Mills, a school about 90 miles south of Baltimore that enrolls about 1,600 students.

Cameron said Rollins fired a Glock 9-mm gun at a 16-year-old girl and 14-year-old boy. There’s “an indication that a prior relationship existed between the shooter and the female victim,” Cameron said, an angle that investigators were pursuing Tuesday.

The school’s resource officer, Deputy First Class Blaine Gaskill, responded quickly to the scene and “engaged” the shooter, Cameron said. As Gaskill fired at Rollins, Rollins “almost simultaneously” fired his gun, Cameron said.

Investigators are still trying to determine which bullets struck which individuals.

The 16-year-old girl suffered life-threatening injuries and was in critical condition at the University of Maryland Prince George’s Hospital Center, while the 14-year-old boy was in good condition at Medstar St. Mary’s Hospital.

Officers from multiple agencies are assisting with the investigation into the shooting, which included searching a car and a home, combing through social media accounts, interviewing witnesses, reviewing footage from surveillance cameras and tracing the ownership of the gun used by the student. Cameron said there weren’t any immediately obvious warning signs on social media before the shooting, but said investigators still needed to take a deeper look.