GREAT MILLS, Md. — A student opened fire with a handgun in the hallway of a Maryland high school Tuesday, the local sheriff said, spurring a deputy stationed at the school to confront him less than a minute later. The episode left two students injured — one critically — and the gunman fatally wounded.
The suspect, Austin Wyatt Rollins, 17, was confirmed dead at 10:41 a.m., said Sheriff Timothy K. Cameron of St. Mary’s County, adding that it was not immediately clear whether the officer’s round of gunfire struck the suspect.
The sheriff’s office said it received a call of shots fired just before 8 a.m. at Great Mills High School in Great Mills.
Cameron said the school resource officer was alerted to the gunfire: “He pursued the shooter, engaged the shooter, during which that engagement, he fired a round at the shooter simultaneously the shooter fired a round as well.’’
Cameron said the officer, Deputy Blaine Gaskill, was not injured. He said a 14-year-old male student was taken to a hospital in stable condition, and a 16-year-old female student was transported to a trauma facility, where she was in critical condition.
At the beginning of an early afternoon news conference, Cameron said Rollins had shot the male and female victims. But in response to reporters’ questions he said he could not say with certainty whose gun had wounded the male victim.
Neither victim was identified, but Cameron said there was an indication that Rollins and the female victim had a “prior relationship,’’ although he did not elaborate.
“On this day, we realize our worst nightmare,’’ the sheriff said, “that our greatest asset, our children, were attacked in one of our places, a bastion of safety and security, one of our schools.’’
“The notion of it can’t happen here is no longer a notion,’’ he added.
The shooting came just over a month after 14 students and three adults were killed at a high school in Parkland, Fla., adding new urgency to the debate over gun control and raising questions about the role of armed personnel in schools. Surveillance video fromo Parkland showed Scot Peterson, the deputy posted at the school, did not go inside a building to engage the gunman, in an apparent violation of protocol.
Cameron told The Washington Post there was ‘‘no question’’ the situation in Maryland would have been worse if the officer had not engaged the shooter.
Cameron said Gaskill and witnesses were being interviewed by detectives. Other students at the school had been taken to Leonardtown High School, about 15 minutes away, to be reunited with families.
The parking lot at Great Mills High was filled with more than a dozen police cars, the flashing lights punctuating the gray skies. Officers directed traffic in the pouring rain, having blocked off the area in front of the school.
In a statement, the school called the shooting “tragic’’ and urged parents and students to stay away as the school was locked down. The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent agents to the school.
Governor Larry Hogan said his office was closely monitoring the situation, and that he was praying for the victims and the Great Mills community.
“But prayers are not enough,’’ Hogan said, in an e-mailed statement. “Although our pain remains fresh and the facts remain uncertain, today’s horrible events should not be an excuse to pause our conversation about school safety. Instead, it must serve as a call to action.’’
