6-YEAR-OLD SHOOTS TEACHER IN US CLASSROOM: POLICE

Sat 07 January 2023:

During a altercation inside a first-grade classroom, a six-year-old Virginia student shot and injured a teacher, according to police and school administrators in Newport News.

According to authorities, no students were hurt in the shooting on Friday at Richneck Elementary School. The teacher, a 30-year-old lady, sustained fatal wounds.

By late afternoon, according to Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew, her condition had slightly improved.

Police said the child had a handgun in the classroom and that they took that student into custody.

“We did not have a situation where someone was going around the school shooting,” Drew told reporters. “We have a situation in one particular location where a gunshot was fired.”

The shooting was not an accident, he said.

Investigators were trying to figure out where the child obtained the gun.

“We have been in contact with our commonwealth’s attorney [local prosecutor] and some other entities to help us best get services to this young man,” Drew said.

The police chief did not provide further details about the shooting, the altercation or what happened inside the school.

Joselin Glover, whose son is in fourth grade, told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper she got a text from the school stating that one person was shot and another was in custody.

“My heart stopped,” she said. “I was freaking out, very nervous. Just wondering if that one person was my son.”

Carlos, her 9-year-old, was at recess. But he said he and his classmates were soon holed up in the back of a classroom.

“Most of the whole class was crying,” Carlos told the newspaper.

Newport News is a city of about 185,000 people in southeastern Virginia known for its shipyard, which builds the nation’s aircraft carriers and other US Navy vessels.

Virginia law does not allow six-year-olds to be tried as adults. In addition, a six-year-old is too young to be committed to the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice if found guilty.

A juvenile judge would have the authority, though, to revoke a parent’s custody and place a child under the purview of the Department of Social Services.

In 2000, a six-year-old boy fired a bullet from a .32-calibre gun inside Buell Elementary near Flint, Michigan, striking another six-year-old, Kayla Rolland, in the neck, according to an AP article from the time. She died a half-hour later.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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