Sheriff: Maryland School Shooter Killed Himself

The student who fatally shot a female classmate last week at a Maryland high school died from a self-inflicted gunshot in a confrontation with a school resource officer who also fired his gun, police said Monday. The St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that 17-year-old Austin Rollins fired a fatal shot to his head as he encountered sheriff's deputy Blaine Gaskill last Tuesday at Great Mills High School, reports the AP. Gaskill's shot struck Rollins' gun. Jaelynn Willey, 16, died two days later. According to the sheriff's office, Rollins entered the school about five minutes before he shot Willey in the head with his father's gun. The same bullet traveled into the leg of Desmond Barnes, 14, who had sought shelter in a classroom. Rollins then turned a corner and passed several classrooms before confronting Gaskill; both fired their weapons about 30 seconds later.

In one of the 911 calls released, Barnes tells a dispatcher, "I was just shot in my school." A woman, possibly a teacher, tells the dispatcher that four students are in her classroom, one of them shot and bleeding. "We have him laying down," she said. "I'm afraid to transport him to safer place." A voice on the school's intercom system urges students to stay in their classrooms. "It'll be OK," the woman says. "It's OK ... They're coming. ... Don't worry." Barnes and the dispatcher talk again. The teen said he's been shot in the back of the thigh and that "it's burning." "Oh my knee hurts so bad," he said. "We're getting help to you, Desmond," the dispatcher replied. "Stay strong for me buddy." Emergency responders soon arrive. "Hi Desmond, we're putting a tourniquet on you, all right?" one of them tells him. "A tourniquet stops the bleeding."