Maryland School Officer Stops Armed Student

[Ethereal]

Maryland school officer stops armed student who shot 2 others

By Eric Levenson, CNN | Updated 7:24 PM ET, Tue March 20, 2018

(CNN)A 17-year-old male student shot two other students at Great Mills High School in Maryland on Tuesday morning before a school resource officer engaged him and stopped the threat, authorities said.

The incident began in a school hallway at 7:55 a.m., just before classes started. Authorities say Austin Wyatt Rollins, armed with a handgun, shot a female and a male student. The shooter had a prior relationship with the female student, St. Mary's County Sheriff Tim Cameron said.

School resource officer Blaine Gaskill responded to the scene in less than a minute, the sheriff said. Gaskill fired a round at the shooter, and the shooter fired a round simultaneously, Cameron said.

Rollins was later pronounced dead. Gaskill was unharmed. The 16-year-old female student is in critical condition with life-threatening injuries, and the 14-year-old male student who was shot is in stable condition.

Cameron said he was not sure whether Gaskill's bullet hit the suspect, but he praised the officer's quick response to the situation.

It's not clear whether or not the officer shot the shooter or the shooter shot himself. But it seems like a reasonable inference that however the shooter died, it was precipitated by the officer's engagement.

[hanger4]

This points out the value of having armed resource officers on campus, at least when they are willing to respond.

[waltky]

School shooting in Maryland...

Two Hurt, Gunman Dead in Maryland School Shooting
March 20, 2018 - A school resource officer shot the student gunman, who opened fire at Great Mills High School.

Two students were injured and a third, the gunman, has died in a shooting in a hallway at Great Mills High School in Southern Maryland on Tuesday morning, according to the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office. A school resource officer shot the student gunman, who fired back with a handgun, Sheriff Tim Cameron said. The school resource officer was not injured, Cameron said. “He pursued the shooter and engaged the shooter,” Cameron said of the school resource officer, whose identity has not been released. The two students who were injured — a 14-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl — were being treated at local hospitals, officials said. Neither their identities, nor the shooter’s, were released Tuesday morning. The boy is in good condition and is being treated at MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital. The girl was initially brought to MedStar, but was later stabilized and transferred to University of Maryland Prince George’s Hospital Center. The shooting happened just before 8 a.m. at the school at 21130 Great Mills Road, county spokesman Tony Jones said from the emergency operations center. The St. Mary’s County school was on lockdown and students were being evacuated, Jones said.

Cameron said multiple law enforcement agencies and fire departments assisted in the “mass response” at the school. “This is what we train for. This is what we prepare for and this is what we pray we never have to to,” Cameron said. “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.” Parents are being asked to meet their children at a reunification site at Forrest Career Technical Center in Leonardtown. Details about any injuries or the person who fired shots was not immediately available. “There has been an incident at Great Mills High School,” the department tweeted. “Parents please DO NOT respond to the school.” Senior Terrence Rhames was standing with his friends outside their first-period class around 8 a.m. when he heard a shot. He said he knew instantly what the loud crack meant. He started running, heading to a first-floor bathroom before thinking to himself, “This is a dead end.” He turned to instead sprint toward the nearest exit. Out of the corner of his eye, Rhames said, he saw a girl fall. “I just thank god I’m safe,” said Rhames, 18. “I just want to know who did it and who got injured.”

Great Mills, which enrolls about 1,600 students, is about 90 miles outside of Baltimore. St. Mary’s Ryken High School, a private school about 15 minutes northwest of Great Mills, went into lockdown around 9 a.m., according to Brad Chamberlain, dean of academics. “We’re getting conflicting reports,” Chamberlain said. U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, a Democrat who represents Southern Maryland, said his first reaction to hearing of a school shooting in his district was “a deep sense of loss.” As a father, grandfather and great-grandfather, Hoyer said it’s important to keep children safe in schools. The incident comes just over a month after a deadly rampage in a Florida high school. Seventeen people died in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, catalyzing a national conversation about gun violence in schools. Last Wednesday, Great Mills students participated in a nationwide “school walkout” on the one-month anniversary of the Parkland shooting. The students called for an end to gun violence and more school safety measures, according to local news reports.

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See also:

Maryland School Resource Officer Stopped Gunman
March 20, 2018 - St. Mary's County Deputy First Class Blaine Gaskill responded quickly to the scene in a first-floor hallway at the school when he exchanged gunfire with 17-year-old Austin Wyatt Rollins.

A teenage boy who fired at classmates and exchanged gunfire with a school resource officer at Great Mills High School in Southern Maryland is dead, and two other students were injured in the incident, officials said Tuesday. Investigators with the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office were still sorting out which bullets hit which individuals, as the investigation into the nation’s latest school shooting continued. Officials identified the alleged shooter as Great Mills student Austin Wyatt Rollins, 17. They said he fired a Glock 9-millimeter gun at a 16-year-old girl, who was critically injured, and a 14-year-old boy, who was listed in good condition Tuesday. A school resource officer, Deputy First Class Blaine Gaskill, responded quickly to the scene in a first-floor hallway at the school, the sheriff’s office said. As Gaskill fired at Rollins, Rollins almost simultaneously fired his gun. Gaskill was not injured in the shooting.

St. Mary’s County Sheriff Tim Cameron said said there is an “indication that a prior relationship existed between the shooter and the female victim.” Officers are working to determine if that was part of the motive, and they are trying to determine which shots struck which individuals. "While it’s still tragic, he may have saved other people’s lives,” Gov. Larry Hogan said of Gaskill, who has been assigned to Great Mills since the start of the school year. The male victim is being treated at MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital. The girl was taken to University of Maryland Prince George’s Hospital Center, and is battling life-threatening injuries, Cameron said. The shooting happened in a first-floor hallway just before 8 a.m. at the school at 21130 Great Mills Road, county spokesman Tony Jones said from the emergency operations center. The St. Mary’s County school was placed on lockdown and students were evacuated, Jones said.

Cameron said multiple law enforcement agencies and fire departments assisted in the "mass response" at the school. "This is what we train for. This is what we prepare for and this is what we pray we never have to do," Cameron said. "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." Officers from multiple agencies assisted 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, but that investigators still needed to take a deeper look at social media.

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Related:

Doing It Right On the Nightmare Scene
March 20, 2018 - When it happens in your child's school, what will your agency's response be? How will it be handled? Have you talked to your kids?

It’s the phone call / text that no parent ever wants to receive from their child. “Dad/Mom… there’s been a shooting at my school. I’m scared.” I’m thankful that my children are all out of high school but realistic enough to understand that doesn’t mean they are free of danger. In this case, there are some things to be learned from the event circumstances, the response and the mitigation/recovery.

Deputy Blaine Gaskill

First, I’m talking about the “school shooting” that occurred at Great Mills High School in Lexington Park, Maryland on March 20th. I put school shooting in quotes because it is NOT the “typical” what you’ve come to expect as a reported school shooting. This was not a mass attack. At the time of this writing, the indications are that it may not ever have intended to be such. It may well have been a murder attempt with a single intended victim. We’ll never know because the shooter was quickly neutralized by the School Resource Officer on site. Also, if this had happened in a department store parking lot, the number of dead/wounded would likely have remained the same but since it wasn’t on a school’s property, the mainstream media wouldn’t give it the time of day.

Second, the mainstream media representatives, as I watched them during the two press conferences I attended today, kept looking for a hook to make this bigger news. The expected politicians showed up to express their concern and shock to those in attendance. One or two of them tried to leverage the event into a greater call for gun control and bans on semi-automatic rifles. That proved a challenge since the shooter didn’t use a rifle and the only casualty reported (as of this writing) was the shooter himself. The female victim is reportedly in ICU at the PG County Shock Trauma unit. The male victim was shot in the leg and is in stable condition at a local hospital.

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[midcan5]

Imagine instead if the Maryland shooter had an AR15, no need to imagine is there. The reason they should be banned.

[Grokmaster]

good guys with guns.jpg

[Cannons Front]

Imagine instead if the Maryland shooter had an AR15, no need to imagine is there. The reason they should be banned.

Why do you think it would be any different than now? You are assuming it would be, Rifles of any type are rarely used in mass shootings when compared to other weapons.

[zelmo1234]

Imagine instead if the Maryland shooter had an AR15, no need to imagine is there. The reason they should be banned.

The officers would have engaged him and he would still be dead.

What would have been the difference.

[Standing Wolf]

Imagine instead if the Maryland shooter had an AR15, no need to imagine is there. The reason they should be banned.

Imagine having a school with the kind of security that would be able to immediately detect a student - or anyone - attempting to carry a rifle onto the campus and stop them from doing it.

It occurs to me that if the up-in-arms students, parents and teachers marching and protesting for "gun control" would simply volunteer to take a short watch on a school entrance and lock it down, while calling in an alert, if somebody with a big scary gun shows up there, that might actually be a more effective use of their free time.

No, easier and more dramatic - not to mention fun - to march on various state capitols demanding that something be banned. Besides, that other thing wouldn't likely get anyone any new Facebook friends or re-Tweets, and nobody would get their picture on the evening news.

[Grokmaster]

Imagine instead if the Maryland shooter had an AR15, no need to imagine is there. The reason they should be banned.

He would have been shot dead holding n AR15. Contrary to leftist idiocy, they are nit Mythical Weapons of Udefeatable Power.

The pistol he had was illegal for him to have, as well. Criminals do not follow laws.

[Captdon]

Imagine instead if the Maryland shooter had an AR15, no need to imagine is there. The reason they should be banned.

The reality is he didn't. He had a stolen handgun. What law would have stopped this?