Maryland High School Shooting Victim Dies After Removal of Life Support

A 16-year-old girl shot earlier this week at her Maryland high school has died.

The St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office said Friday that Jaelynn Willey died at 11:34 p.m. Thursday.

Earlier Thursday night, Willey's family said Jaelynn would be taken off life support at University of Maryland Prince George's Hospital Center.

Jaelynn was shot in the head Tuesday morning at Great Mills High School by 17-year-old Austin Rollins. Police say the two had been in a relationship that recently ended.

A 14-year-old student, Desmond Barnes, was also injured.

Rollins was killed in the attack. It remains unclear whether he committed suicide or was shot by a school resource officer who responded to the attack.

The sheriff's office said Jaelynn was surrounded by her family when she died.

The school has about 1,600 students and is near the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, about 65 miles (104 kilometers) southeast of Washington. On Tuesday, ambulances, fire trucks and other emergency vehicles crowded the parking lot and the street outside, where about 20 school buses lined up in the rain to take students to nearby Leonardtown High School to be picked up by their parent or guardians.

Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer praised the first responders, saying the officer at the school "answered the call this morning with swiftness, professionalism, and courage." He said it's now for Congress to take action.

"We sympathize. We empathize. We have moments of silence. But we don't have action," Hoyer said. "Wringing our hands is not enough."

Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., also spoke to reporters near the high school, and expressing anger and saying that at a minimum, universal background checks and a ban on assault-style weapons are needed. He said he believes momentum is building for reform, fueled by student activism.

"These students are literally just not taking 'no' for an answer," Cardin said. "I can tell you that Americans are listening to our students. I think our political system will respond."

Maryland's Senate joined the House on Monday night to ban bump stocks, which enable a semi-automatic rifle to mimic a fully automatic weapon. Teachers' union leaders issued statements Tuesday saying more policies must be changed nationwide to keep schools safe.

Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, meanwhile, accused the Democrat-led legislature of failing to take action on "one of the most aggressive school safety plans in the country."

"We've got to take action," Hogan said. "We're going to try to get something done in Annapolis."

Many students across the country are calling for effective gun controls, leading up to Saturday's March For Our Lives rally in the nation's capital against gun violence in schools. The violence hasn't abated since the massacre in Parkland, Florida; A high school student in Birmingham, Alabama, was killed this month when a classmate fired a gun inside a classroom. Threats against schools have proliferated as well, and Great Mills High has not been immune.

Just last month, the school's principal, Jake Heibel, told parents in a letter posted on the local news site The Bay Net that two students were interviewed after they were overheard mentioning a school shooting, and they were found to pose no threat. Heibel said the school increased its security nevertheless after social media posts about a possible school shooting "circulated quite extensively."

Also last month, 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 Leonardtown High School, a high school about 10 miles from Great Mills. Police said they obtained a search warrant that led to them finding semi-automatic rifles, handguns and other weapons, along with ammunition.

"This is what we prepare for and this is what we pray we will never have to do," the sheriff said Tuesday. "The notion that it can't happen here is no longer a notion."

(The Associated Press, CBS News contributed to this report.)