2 Students Hurt, Shooter Dead After Md. School Shooting

A student pulled out a gun and shot two other students at a high school in southeast Maryland Tuesday morning before the shooter was fatally wounded, the St. Mary’s County sheriff says.The student entered Great Mills High School in Great Mills at the beginning of the school day and shot a female student with a handgun in a hallway, Sheriff Tim Cameron told News4. A male student also was hit by a bullet. More DC Residents Say They’re Living Without Heat The 16-year-old female student was stabilized and transferred to UM Prince George’s Hospital Center, and the 14-year-old male victim is in good condition, according to the MedStar St. Mary’s HospitalThe shooter, a male, has died, the sheriff said. McCabe Kept Trump Memos, Gave Them to Mueller: Source Information was not available immediately on the relationship between the students, Cameron said. A motive is not yet clear. The shooter and a school resource officer both fired a round, but authorities don’t know if the officer’s bullet killed the suspect, Cameron said. The officer was not hurt. Parkland Survivors to Participate in Gun Panel at Harvard “When the shooting took place, our school resource officer, who was stationed inside the school, was alerted to the event and the shots being fired. He pursued the shooter and engaged the shooter, during which that engagement he fired a round at the shooter,” Cameron said. Cameron said the shooter fired a round simultaneously. “In the days to come, through a detailed investigation, we will be able to determine if our SRO’s round struck the shooter,” Cameron said.  The school was locked down and the incident was contained, according to the school’s website. Deputies were called to the school about 60 miles southeast of Washington, D.C. just before 8 a.m. Cameron told News4 that his department prepares for emergencies. But despite the fast response of the school resource officer, or SRO, two students were still shot.”You train to respond to this and you hope that you never ever have to,” he said. “This is the realization of your worst nightmare — that, in a school, that our children could be attacked. And so as quickly … as that SRO responded and engaged, there’s grievous injuries to two students.”He added, “Now begins the second phase of this operation, and that’s the background and the investigation and the attempt for the school to return to normal.”A Twitter post from the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office asked parents not to report to the school. They were asked to go to nearby Leonardtown High School to reunite with their children.Family members of the students parked along roads and in nearby shopping centers as they rushed to meet their kids. One recent graduate hurried to pick up her sister, who texted her that she was “terrified.” Agents of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were traveling to the school to assist with the investigation.Gov. Larry Hogan said he was praying for the victims, their loved ones and the community.  “But prayers are not enough,” he continued in a 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.”Maryland’s Senate joined the House Monday night to ban bump stocks, which enable a semi-automatic rifle to mimic a fully automatic weapon.President Donald Trump was made aware of the shooting, and the White House is monitoring the incident, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Fox News. The shooting comes four days before the national March for Our Lives, a rally for student safety inspired by last month’s massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.”We are Here for you, students of Great Mills,” Parkland student activist Emma Gonzalez tweeted, adding, “together we can stop this from ever happening again.”Just days ago, students at Great Mills High walked out of class to protest gun violence, The Bay Net reported.Threats of a possible shooting at the school were investigated last month and found to be “not substantiated,” the principal said.Principal Jake Heibel told parents that school officials interviewed two students in February who were overheard mentioning a school shooting and found that they posed no threat.But Heibel said the school still increased its security after social media posts about a possible school shooting “circulated quite extensively.”Rep. Steny Hoyer, the Democrat who represents the area in Congress, said he was sickened to hear the news about the shooting and advocated for universal background checks for weapons.”Background checks just make common sense to make sure people can and will use a weapon thoughtfully and not dangerously,” he told News4.Stay with News4 on-air and online for more on this developing story.Photo Credit: AP This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.
Source: NBC San Diego