A six-year-old boy from Richneck Elementary School, Newport News, Virginia, in the United States, has been detained by the police for shooting his teacher.
The police said the teacher, a woman in her 30s is battling life-threatening gun wounds in a hospital after the grave incident happened around 2 pm on Friday.
According to CBS News, an argument ensued between the boy and his teacher, and the former brought out a handgun and fired at the latter in the class.It was not clear how many shots were fired, the exact point the bullet(s) hit and the cause of the argument.
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The police tactical teams were sent into the building after the incident and found other children trembling in their classrooms. None of them suffered any injury and they were taken to the gymnasium.
“This was not an accidental shooting,” police chief Steve Drew said. “I want to know where that firearm came from.”
He added, “We did not have a situation where someone was going around the school shooting.”
The mayor of Newport News, Philip Jones said, “Right now it’s still raw, but what I will tell you is there’s going to be a full after-action [report], not only internally from the city council with the school board and others, but we are going to ensure that we have the right steps and policies so that this doesn’t happen again.”
Newport News is a city of about 185,000 people in southeast Virginia known for its dockyard which builds aircraft carriers and other US Navy vessels.
The school’s superintendent, George Parker said he was “shocked” and “disheartened” that the school was unable to keep guns out.
“We need to keep guns out of the hands of our young people. I cannot control access to weapons. My teachers cannot control access,” Parker said.
Parker said that all school campuses are equipped for random metal detector searches, but they were not deployed at Richneck Elementary on Friday.
He added, “Today our students got a lesson in gun violence and what guns can do to disrupt, not only an educational environment but also a family, a community.”
