Austin Wyatt Rollins: Great Mills High School Shooting Suspect Identified As 17-Year-Old Student


Austin Wyatt Rollins has been identified as the student who opened fire in Great Mills High School on Tuesday in an attack that left two others injured and could have been much more devastating were it not for the quick work of a school resource officer.

The Great Mills High School shooting began Tuesday morning just before classes started at 8 a.m., Southern Maryland Newspapers Online reported. The sheriff’s department later reported that the gunman opened fire inside a school hallway, injuring a male student and a female student. Police later said that Rollins had a relationship with the female student.

Sheriff Tim Cameron reported that the school resource officer returned fire with Austin Wyatt Rollins. Cameron said that the resource officer took down the suspect with a single shot, and the resource officer was unhurt, Bloomberg reported.

Students at the school described a chaotic scene. Terrence Rhames, a student at the school, told MSNBC (via the New York Daily News) that he was outside his first-period art class when he heard a loud gunshot and immediately ran for cover. Rhames said he saw a girl with a blonde ponytail fall to the floor and confusion among students and faculty about what was happening.

After the shooting, all of the nearly 1,600 students at the school were evacuated to nearby Leonardtown High School to be reunited with their families, the report noted.

Last month, police had arrested a pair of teenagers at Leonardtown High School after they spoke about bringing guns to school. As the Southern Maryland Newspapers Online reported, the boys were arrested on a charge of threats of mass violence. Police also issued a warrant for the arrest of 39-year-old David William Fairfax of Leonardtown on a charge of reckless endangerment and access to a firearm by a minor.

Police did not release the names of the 15- and 16-year-old who were arrested, and it was not immediately clear if the arrests were connected in any way to Tuesday’s shooting at Great Mills High School or suspect Austin Wyatt Rollins.

Parents at Great Mills High School had also warned school officials of threats being made on Snapchat, the New York Daily News reported. Principal Jake Heibel told parents that the threats were not substantiated, but the school nonetheless was ramping up security measures.

The shooting at Great Mills High School comes just over a month after a shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, left 17 people dead and led to nationwide protests in favor of stricter gun control.

Officials have not yet released information on Great Mills School suspect Austin Wyatt Rollins, or what motive there may have been for the attack.

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