UPDATE: SMNEWSNET has removed the name and all photos of the 17-year-old shooter in our articles, from this point on he will be referred to as “the shooter” We feel the public should see the victims faces and remember their names. All comments have also been removed for articles related to the shooting.
3/20/2018: The shooter entered Great Mills High School just before 8:00 a.m., and used a 9mm semi-automatic handgun to shoot a 16-year-old female student and a 14-year-old male student.
Shortly after the gunman opened fire, the school’s resource officer, Blaine Gaskill, of the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office exchanged fire with him. The shooter had been wounded in that exchange, but that the officer was not injured. A couple of hours later, the gunman died.
“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, engaged the shooter and during that engagement he fired a round at the shooter, simultaneously the shooter fired a round as well,” Cameron said at the press briefing. “In the hours to come and the days to come, through detailed investigation, we will be able to determine if our school resource officers round struck the shooter, the school resource officer is uninjured and was not struck by any firearm projectile.”
Sheriff Tim Cameron said, details on a potential motive are not yet clear, and witnesses are being interviewed by detectives.
The 16-year-old female student was transferred to the ICU at UM Prince George’s Hospital Center, where she has life-threatening injuries, and the 14-year-old male victim is in good condition, at MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital.
This is not the first time Deputy Gaskill faced an armed suspect, on Tuesday, July 26, 2016, Gaskill responded to the 45000 block of Stoney Run Drive in Great Mills for a disturbance.
Upon arrival, Deputy Gaskill made contact with a resident of the home, who advised the argument occurred in an upstairs apartment. As the deputy made his way to the apartment, with the homeowner, he observed a man standing on the front porch pointing a handgun at him. Deputy Gaskill gave multiple commands for the subject to drop the weapon, but he refused. Ultimately, the suspect, Pekka Robert Heinonen, 59, of Great Mills, complied and was placed under arrest.
