Condition of Virginia teacher shot by 6-year-old improving, mayor says

A Virginia teacher who was critically injured when she was shot by a six-year-old student in Newport News, Va., is showing signs of improvement as authorities struggle to understand how a young child could be involved in a school shooting, the city’s mayor said Monday.

Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones said the condition of the teacher, a woman in her 30s, was “trending in a positive direction” as she remained hospitalized.

The boy shot and wounded the teacher in his first-grade classroom at Richneck Elementary School, according to authorities. Police Chief Steve Drew said the shooting was accidental and part of an altercation but did not elaborate. No students were injured.

Jones declined to release additional details Saturday about what led to the altercation, citing an ongoing police investigation. He also would not comment on how the boy got access to the gun or who owned the weapon.

“This is a red flag for the state,” Jones said.

“I think that after this event, there will be a national discussion about how it can be prevented.”

Experts who study gun violence say the shooting represents a rare instance of a child bringing a gun to school and wounding a teacher.

“It’s very rare and it’s not something the legal system is designed or positioned to deal with,” said researcher David Riedman, founder of a database that tracks US school shootings since 1970.

He said Saturday that he knew of only three other shootings caused by six-year-old students during his time at the school. These include the fatal shooting of a fellow student in 2000 in Michigan and the fatal shootings of other students in 2011 in Texas and 2021 in Mississippi.

Riedman said he knows of only one student younger than that who has caused a school shooting — when a five-year-old student brought a gun to a Tennessee school in 2013 and accidentally discharged it. No one was injured in the incident.

Daniel W. Webster, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who studies gun violence, agreed that a six-year shooting of a teacher at a school is extremely unusual. But he said the research shows that minors are accessing loaded guns and accidentally shooting themselves or others in homes or other settings.

“Six-year-olds gaining access to a loaded gun and shooting themselves or others is, unfortunately, not uncommon,” he said in an email.

The shooting was not an accident: the police chief

In the Newport News case, Drew, the police chief, said Friday that the shooting was not an accident and was isolated to a single victim. He said students and teachers have gotten to know each other in the classroom environment.

“We don’t have a situation where someone is surrounding a school shooting,” Drew told reporters.

They said the boy had a handgun in the classroom, and investigators are trying to figure out where he got it.

Parents and students reunited in the gymnasium, Newport News Public Schools said via Facebook.

The police chief declined to discuss what investigators have done​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​with the boy’s parents.

“We have been in contact with the commonwealth’s attorney [local prosecutor] and several other entities to help us get the best services for these young people,” Drew said.

Newport News is a city of about 185,000 in southeastern Virginia known for its shipyards, which build aircraft carriers and other US naval vessels.

Richneck has about 550 students who are in kindergarten through 5th grade, according to the Virginia Department of Education website. School officials have said there will be no classes at the school on Monday.

“Today the students got a lesson in gun violence,” said George Parker III, superintendent of Newport News schools. “And what guns can do to disrupt, not only the educational environment but also the family, the community.”

Virginia law does not allow children as young as six to be tried as adults.

Additionally, a six-year-old child is too young to be referred to the Department of Juvenile Justice if convicted.

However, a juvenile judge has the authority to revoke a parent’s custody and place the child under the Department of Social Services.