Hero school resource officer throws out first pitch at Nationals game
Deputy First Class Blaine Gaskill, the school resource officer who engaged the Great Mills gunman during a recent school shooting in Maryland, threw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals home opener on Thursday.
Just two weeks after exchanging gunfire in the hallway with the shooter, Gaskill was commended for his bravery by the MLB's defending National League East champions. The gunman entered school just before 8 AM and shot a young woman, Jaelynn Willey, who eventually was taken off life support and died that week, and another student, Desmond Barnes, who was released from the hospital the next day.
Politicians and celebrities typically receive the opening pitch honors, but Gaskill's heroics weren't overlooked. The former SWAT team member fired once at the shooter before he could target anymore of his classmates at the public high school roughly sixty miles outside of D.C.
The school shooting was the 17th this year, and it was during the same week as the March For Our Lives rally organized by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas student activists.
Other notable pre-game ceremonies included D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who was holding two-year-old Parker Curry, the little girl who became a viral sensation after her dance party with Michelle Obama, announcing "let's play ball!"