A six-year-old boy was detained by police in Newport News, Virginia, after he brought a 9 mm Taurus gun to school and shot his first-grade teacher.
On Friday, January 6, the first-grader at the Richneck Elementary School fired at his teacher, 25-year-old Abby Zwerner, and left her with serious injuries.
Steve Drew, the Newport News Police Chief, confirmed the shooting during a press conference and said that the shooting was not an accident.
After being shot, the teacher, Zwerner helped the children evacuate the classroom, while she stumbled, bleeding and collapsed in an office.
“From the video surveillance we have of that hallway, you can see the students running out of that classroom across the hall into another classroom. Ms. Zwerner was the last person to leave that class,” said Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew.
Police say no students were injured during the incident.
According to a child that witnessed the incident in the classroom, the class was doing a reading lesson and was about to leave for art class, when the boy pulled out the gun from his backpack and pointed it at the teacher. She made a move to confiscate the gun, which prompted the child to shoot.
The boy had taken the gun from his home. It was legally purchased by his mother.
Authorities are in the position of having to define the proper action to be taken against the six-year-old due to his age.
On Saturday, the mayor said the boy had all the needed services. He said the incident, the first US school shooting of the year, was a red flag for the country.
The mayor hoped the incident would spark a nationwide discussion on preventing such shootings.
School shootings in the US are frequent, but an incident where the shooter is so young is almost unheard of. There have only been three other shootings by a six-year-old student since 1970. Those incidents involved other students and not teachers.
According to Virginia state law, children so young cannot be tried as adults and cannot be committed to the Juvenile Justice Department’s custody even if found guilty. However, authorities can revoke custody rights from the parents.
Officials said that the school has metal detectors, but the students are checked at random and that’s why the gun was not detected.