Students and police collect outdoors Richneck Elementary School after a capturing on January 6, 2023 in Newport News, Virginia. Photo Credit: AP
Police and college officers within the metropolis of Newport News mentioned Friday {that a} 6-year-old pupil in Virginia shot and wounded a instructor throughout an altercation inside a first-grade classroom at his faculty.
Police mentioned no college students had been injured within the capturing at Richneck Elementary School. The instructor – a lady in her 30s – suffered life-threatening accidents. Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew mentioned her situation had improved considerably by late afternoon.
“We did not have a state of affairs the place somebody was going round a college capturing,” Mr Drew informed reporters, later including that the gunshot was not an accident.
Mr Drew mentioned the scholars and lecturers knew one another within the classroom.
He mentioned the boy had a handgun within the classroom and investigators had been making an attempt to find out the place he obtained it. The police chief didn’t present additional particulars in regards to the capturing or what occurred inside the college.
Jocelyn Glover, whose son is in fourth grade, informed The Virginian-Pilot The newspaper acquired a textual content from her faculty saying one individual had been shot and one other was in custody.
“My coronary heart stopped,” she mentioned. “I used to be very nervous, very nervous. Just questioning if that individual was my son.
Her 9-year-old Carlos was on trip. But she mentioned she and her classmates had been quickly hiding behind a classroom.
“Most of the entire class was crying,” Carlos informed the newspaper.
Parents and college students had been reunited on the door of a gymnasium, Newport News Public Schools mentioned by way of Facebook.
The police chief didn’t particularly reply questions on whether or not officers had been involved with the boy’s dad and mom, however mentioned members of the police division are dealing with that investigation.
“We are involved with our Commonwealth’s Solicitor (native prosecutor) and some different businesses to assist us present the perfect companies to this younger man,” Mr Drew mentioned.
Newport News is a metropolis of roughly 185,000 individuals in southeastern Virginia identified for its shipyards, which construct the nation’s plane carriers and different US Navy ships.
According to the Virginia Department of Education web site, Richneck has roughly 550 college students who’re in kindergarten by way of fifth grade. The faculty authorities have already mentioned that lessons is not going to be held within the faculty on Monday.
“Today our college students obtained a lesson in gun violence,” mentioned Newport News School Superintendent George Parker III, “and what weapons can do to disrupt not solely an academic atmosphere, however a household, a group.”