HAGERSTOWN, MD. ? A corrections officer who was shot in the face by a hospitalized inmate has died of his injuries, officials said Saturday, and union leaders are demanding a review of the department’s staffing policies.

Jeffery Alan Wroten, 44, was the only officer guarding inmate Brandon Morris at Washington County Hospital early Thursday when he was shot.

Morris somehow grabbed the officer’s gun about 5 a.m., and during a struggle for control, fired into Wroten’s face, said corrections commissioner Frank C. Sizer Jr.

Wroten, who died on Friday, had been assigned to the medium-security Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown, where Morris was serving an eight-year sentence for assault, robbery and handgun convictions.

Morris is now in a maximum-security facility. He had not been charged in Wroten’s shooting Saturday, but Sizer said he considers it a capital offense.

In Maryland, the death penalty is reserved for cases of first-degree murder, either premeditated or during the commission of a felony.