Three students critically injured – including gunman – after he walks into Maryland high school and shoots a teen boy and girl before being taken down in ‘exchange of fire with armed resource officer’
Multiple people have been injured after a shooting at Great Mills High School in Great Mills, Maryland Tuesday morning
Students said that the shooting happened shortly after classes started at 8:15am
Sources told WJLA that the shooter is a student and is among three people injured, the other two being students as well
The outlet says a school resource officer helped end the threat
Last month, concerned parents reached out to TheBayNet.com after their children told them about shooting threats at the school
At the time, the school’s principal said the threats had been investigated and found unsubstantiated
Tuesday’s shooting comes four days before the March for Our Lives demonstration in Washington, DC
By ASHLEY COLLMAN
DAILYMAIL.COM
20 March 2018
Three students – including the gunman – are in critical condition after a shooting at a Maryland high school Tuesday morning.
The shooting happened just after classes started at Great Mills High School around 8:15am.
St Mary’s County Sheriff Tim Cameron told NBC Washington that the shooter pulled out a gun and shot a teen girl before being injured himself in a shootout with a school resource officer. A male student was also hit by a bullet.
The school resource officer was not injured in the shooting. Both the shooter and the female victim are in critical condition and the male victim, who was transported to MedStar St. Mary’s, is in critical but stable condition.
It’s unclear if there was a relationship between the shooter and the two victims, Cameron said.
Cameron did not say exactly how the shooter was injured, but if he was shot by the resource officer it will no doubt add a political dimension to the incident since President Trump has suggested arming more school staff to prevent shootings.
‘You train to respond to this and you hope that you never ever have to,’ Cameron 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, so to speak.’
Shortly after 8:30am, the St Mary’s County Sheriff confirmed there had been a shooting at the school, but said the situation was ‘contained’.
Parents were told to stay away from the school, and to instead go to nearby Leonardtown High School to be reunited with their children, who will be taken there once they are evacuated from their classrooms.
A press conference is expected to take place some time this morning.
A student named Jonathan Freese called into CNN while he was in lockdown in his math class and said that the shooting happened just after school started, in the art hallway.
‘I’m still a little shaken up. I didn’t think it would happen,’ Freese told CNN.
Another student, Mollie Davis, tweeted that she heard a ‘loud sound and everyone started screaming and running’.
‘You never think it’ll be your school and then it is. Great Mills is a wonderful school and somewhere I am proud to go. Why us?’ Davis added.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said he is ‘closely monitoring the situation’.
‘Our prayers are with students, school personnel, and first responders,’ Hogan tweeted.
Maryland Congressman Steny Hoyer, the Democratic Whip, cancelled his usually weekly meeting on Capitol Hill to go to the school, which is located in the county where he lives.
He told NBC Washington that he ‘sickened’ that shootings continued to happen in schools, which should be ‘free of threat’.
He said that the amount of mass shootings that have happened this year comes out to about one a week and is ‘just unacceptable’.
The FBI and ATF are on the scene and helping local law enforcement teams investigate.
The shooting comes just four days before the March for Our Lives, a demonstration in Washington, DC and in other cities across the country, calling for increased gun control. The march was organized by survivors of the February 14 school shooting in Parkland, Florida that left 17 dead.
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