According to the city's mayor, the teacher who a 6-year-old pupil was shot in Newport News, Virginia, is showing improvement. Authorities are attempting to determine how a young child could be involved in a school shooting.
As she remains hospitalized, the status of the teacher, a woman in her 30s, is "improving," according to the mayor of Newport News, Phillip Jones.
According to authorities, the youngster shot and wounded the teacher on Friday in a first-grade classroom at Richneck Elementary School.
Chief of Police Steve Drew stated that the gunshot was not accidental and resulted from an altercation but did not explain. No pupils were wounded.
Jones refused to disclose any information regarding the altercation's cause, citing the current police investigation.
He also refused to comment on how the youngster gained access to the firearm or who owned it.
Jones stated, "This is a red flag for the country."
"After this event, I believe there will be a national conversation about how to prevent similar occurrences."
Other media publications, including the New York Post and Mail Online, have named the instructor Abby Zwerner, 25, from Williamsburg.
They said that the teacher was shot in the chest on purpose.
Sebastian Gonzalez-Hernandez, a parent, reportedly confirmed Zwerner's identification and labeled her a hero for "screaming at her children to run away" after the student was fired.
"Even after she had been shot, she was concerned for her children's safety," the media quoted Gonzalez-Hernandez as saying.
"She is a fantastic instructor who works diligently. "My son adores her, and we are all devastated by what has occurred," the father said. We are all thinking about her and wishing her a speedy recovery.
In the meantime, specialists who monitor gun violence stated that a small child carrying a gun to school and hurting a teacher is infrequent.
David Riedman, the founder of a database that has analyzed school shootings in the United States since 1970, stated, "It's scarce, and the legal system isn't designed or positioned to deal with it."
In the period he has studied, he is only aware of three prior shootings committed by 6-year-old kids. These include the deadly shooting of a fellow student in Michigan in 2000 and the injuring of other students in Texas in 2011 and Mississippi in 2021.
Riedman stated that he is only aware of one other incidence of a student younger than that inadvertently discharging a firearm at school, which occurred in 2013 when a 5-year-old student took a gun to a Tennessee school and accidentally fired it. No one was hurt in this incident.
Daniel W. Webster, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University who researches gun violence, concurred that a 6-year-old shooting a teacher at school is infrequent. However, according to his research, young children increasingly gain access to loaded firearms and accidentally shoot themselves or others in homes and other settings.
"Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for a 6-year-old to gain access to a loaded gun and shoot themselves or someone else," he wrote in an email.
Yesterday, Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew stated that the gunshot was not an accident and that there was only one victim. He said that the student and teacher had met in a classroom context.
Drew informed reporters that there was no evidence that anyone attempted to circumvent the school shooting.
He reported that the youngster had a firearm in the classroom, and detectives were attempting to determine how he obtained it.
According to a Facebook post by Newport News Public Schools, parents and students were reunited in a gymnasium.
The police chief declined to comment on investigators' communications with the boy's parents.
Drew stated, "We have been in contact with our commonwealth's attorney [local prosecutor] and other entities to assist us in providing the best services to this young man."
Newport News, a city of approximately 185,000 people in southeastern Virginia, is renowned for its shipyard, where aircraft carriers and other US Navy vessels are constructed.
According to the Virginia Department of Education's website, Richneck has approximately 550 pupils in kindergarten through fifth grade. The school administration has already announced that no lessons will be on Monday.
"Today, our students received a lesson in gun violence," said George Parker III, superintendent of schools in Newport News. "They learned what guns can do to disrupt a school environment, as well as a family and a community."
Under Virginia law, 6-year-olds cannot be tried as adults.
A 6-year-old is also too young to be placed in the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice if they are found guilty.
However, a juvenile judge could withdraw parental custody and place a child under the supervision of the Department of Social Services.
