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Unlike in Florida, a Maryland Deputy Stopped the School Shooter

 

Just more than a month after a shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. left 17 dead and surviving students vowed another one like it would never happen again, there was a shooting incident in Great Mills, Md. on Tuesday.

Alarming news alerts that Great Mills High School was in a lockdown stoked fears of the worst, but police soon said the “event [was] contained.”

More information has emerged. Three, including the shooter, were shot and are in critical condition.

An unnamed school resource officer, a sheriff’s deputy, reportedly exchanged fire with the shooter and stopped the threat.

People on social media are already contrasting this deputy’s action with Scot Peterson‘s inaction in Parkland.

Peterson was called a “coward” and was nationally ridiculed for not charging into the school, even by President Donald Trump.

“When it came time to get in there and do something, he didn’t have the courage or something happened. But he certainly did a poor job. There’s no question about that,” Trump said of Peterson. “That’s a case where somebody was outside, they’re trained, they didn’t act properly or under pressure or they were a coward. It was a real shock to the police department.”

We are still waiting on updates on the conditions of the victims, the identity of the shooter, the weapon used and the identity of the school resource officer (SRO).

Update, 11:29 a.m.:

St. Mary’s Country Sheriff Tim Cameron said in a press conference that the SRO was uninjured. A male and female student were injured in the shooting. The former is listed in stable condition, while the latter is still in critical condition.

The shooter is dead.

Police said that identification would happen at a 1 p.m. press conference.

Update, 1:40 p.m.: 

Police identified the deceased shooter as Austin Wyatt Rollins, 17.

It’s being reported that there is an “indication” he had a relationship with the female victim.

[Image source: Screenshot, Twitter/@ABC]

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Matt Naham is the Senior A.M. Editor of Law&Crime.