This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A sheriff said the gunman who opened fire at a Maryland high school on Tuesday morning has died, after a school resource officer fired at him.

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Sheriff Tim Cameron of St Mary’s county told a news conference the shooter and the officer both fired a round and it was not known if the officer killed the suspect.

“When the shooting took place,” Cameron said, “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.

“Simultaneously the shooter fired a round as well. So, in the hours to come, in the days to come, through a detailed investigation, we will be able to determine if our SRO’s round struck the shooter.”

The male student was armed with a handgun, Cameron said. A female student and a male student were wounded. All three were transported to hospitals, where the shooter died. The school resource officer was not hurt.

The shooting happened in a hallway at Great Mills high school in southern Maryland. The school has about 1,600 students and is near the Patuxent River naval air station, about 65 miles south-east of Washington DC.

The Baltimore Sun reported that a student said the shooting happened around 8am. Terrence Rhames, 18, told the paper he heard a gunshot and saw a girl fall as he ran for an exit. “I just thank God I’m safe,” he said. “I just want to know who did it and who got injured.”

Last month, the St Mary’s county sheriff’s office said it arrested two teenage boys for “threats of mass violence” and a 39-year-old man on related charges after the teens made threats about a potential school shooting at nearby Leonardtown high school.

Police said they obtained search warrants and found a cache of semi-automatic rifles, handguns and other weapons.

On Tuesday morning, concerned parents were advised to report to the school in Leonardtown rather than rush to the Great Mills campus.

On 14 February, 17 people were killed in a shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Student survivors of the assault-rifle attack have since emerged as national campaigners for gun control reform.



Saturday will see a March For Our Lives rally in Washington.