Shocking reports from Newport News, Virginia stated a six-year-old child shot and seriously wounded an elementary school teacher on Friday.
The shooting reportedly occurred in a first-grade classroom at Richneck Elementary School.
According to police, the shooting happened during an altercation and wasn’t an accident.
It remains unclear how the child accessed the firearm.
“Newport News police chief Steve Drew says a six-year-old student shot a teacher at Richneck Elementary School with a handgun this afternoon,” said WTKR News 3 reporter John Cowley IV.
“The teacher has life-threatening injuries but has seen ‘some improvement,’ Drew said. ‘This was not an accidental shooting.'”
BREAKING: Newport News police chief Steve Drew says a six-year-old student shot a teacher at Richneck Elementary School with a handgun this afternoon.
The teacher has life-threatening injuries but has seen "some improvement," Drew said. "This was not an accidental shooting." pic.twitter.com/kVeidEDRPy
— John Cowley IV (@JohnCowleyIV) January 6, 2023
“In a press conference Friday evening, city officials said the shooting was not accidental, that it happened in a first-grade classroom when a male student started arguing with a teacher and that the teacher’s injuries were life-threatening. Everyone else in the school building — faculty, staff, and students — were safe,” 13News Now reports.
The school was put on lockdown around 2 p.m. as police responded to reports of a shooting. Around 3 p.m., a spokesperson for Newport News police said there was no active shooter at the building on Tyner Drive. The school lockdown was lifted around 3:20 p.m., and officers were reuniting parents with their students at a reunification site.
In statements to media afterwards, Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew and other city officials shared the following:
- Police got to the school almost immediately.
- The suspect was taken into custody almost immediately.
- It wasn’t a situation where a gunman was going around the school shooting; it was one scene and one shot fired.
- The way faculty and staff responded was heroic.
- Apart from the victim, everyone in the building was safe.
- The teacher was a woman in her thirties and is in critical condition at Riverside Regional Medical Center.
Drew said police officers were collecting evidence and processing the scene inside the school.
He said the most important thing after the fact was getting students back with their parents and getting counselors in touch with students, making sure they were safe and could process what happened.
Newport News’s new mayor, Phillip Jones, and members of city council and the city’s school board also came out to the scene at the elementary school Friday.
“It’s a dark day for Newport News,” Jones said to reporters.
“We’re going to learn from this and we’re going to come back stronger.”
“The police did an amazing job, got here very, very quickly, along with the sheriff’s office,” he commented on the response to the shooting.
“We are ensuring that everyone is safe, we are ensuring that everyone is accounted for, they’re going to be in the cafeteria right now, and people are being escorted out to their parents.”
My heart goes out to our community tonight. Thank you to the first responders, teachers, staff, and those who were first on the scene. The work ahead for all of us could not be clearer. pic.twitter.com/BfETFyfnzF
— Mayor Phillip Jones (@MayorPhilJones) January 7, 2023
Newport News School Superintendent Dr. George Parker, III said Richneck Elementary School will not hold classes on Monday.
“I’m in awe, I’m in shock and I’m disheartened,” Dr. Parker said.
“Today, our students got a lesson in gun violence, and what guns can do to disrupt not only an educational environment but a family, a community.”
“I cannot control access to weapons. My teachers cannot control access to weapons,” Dr. Parker added.
“It comes on campus because of access in the community, and this is not a Newport News problem. It’s a bigger, broader problem than what we’re seeing today.”
Zero Hedge added:
The 6-year-old was promptly taken into custody. In their posted statement, Newport News Police didn’t disclose the gender of the child — perhaps because, following public education trends, authorities didn’t want to make any rash assumptions. However, subsequent reports indicate it was a boy whose gunfire ensued after he started arguing with the teacher.
The police chief evidenced concern about the shooter. “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,” said Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew.
Virginia law has no provision by which a 6-year-old can be tried as an adult. Nor can he even be committed to the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice, if convicted.
A parent, Trannisha Brown, told The New York Times about the frightening call she received from her son, a student at the school. “It shook me up hearing those kids crying and going frantic. All they knew was that there was a shooter in the school and they didn’t know where the shooter was.
The child apparently didn’t target anyone else. “We did not have a situation where someone was going around the school shooting,” said Drew. The school was put on lockdown from around 2pm until 3:30.
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