A six-year-old student shot and wounded a teacher in Virginia during an altercation inside a first-grade classroom, police and school officials in the city of Newport News said.
No students were injured in the shooting on Friday, January 6, 2023, at Richneck Elementary School, police said. The teacher – a woman in her 30s – suffered life-threatening injuries.
Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew told journalists her condition had improved somewhat by late afternoon.
Police said the child had a handgun in the classroom and that they took that student into custody.
“We did not have a situation where someone was going around the school shooting,” Drew told reporters. “We have a situation in one particular location where a gunshot was fired.”
The shooting was not an accident, he said.
Investigators were trying to figure out where the child obtained the gun.
The police chief did not specifically address questions about whether authorities were in touch with the boy’s parents but said members of the police department were handling that investigation.
“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,” Drew said.
The police chief did not provide further details about the shooting, the altercation or what happened inside the school.
Parents and students were reunited at a gymnasium door, Newport News Public Schools said on Facebook.
Newport News is a city of about 185,000 people in southeastern Virginia known for its shipyard, which builds the nation’s aircraft carriers and other US Navy vessels.
Richneck has about 550 students who are in kindergarten through to fifth grade (10-11 years old), according to the Virginia Department of Education’s website.
Virginia law does not allow six-year-olds to be tried as adults. In addition, a six-year-old is too young to be committed to the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice if found guilty.
A juvenile judge would have the authority, though, to revoke a parent’s custody and place a child under the purview of the Department of Social Services.
A school shooting involving a six-year-old is extremely rare, said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Boston’s Northeastern University.
Fox, who analysed school shooting data sets going back to 1970 from the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, said the data listed school shootings involving children ages seven, eight, nine, and older, but not six-year-olds.
Another factor that stands out about the Virginia shooting is that it occurred in a classroom, Fox said. Many occur outside a school building where students are unsupervised.
In 2000, a six-year-old boy fired a bullet from a .32-calibre gun inside Buell Elementary near Flint, Michigan, striking another six-year-old, Kayla Rolland, in the neck, according to an AP article from the time. She died a half-hour later.
Ogun: Angry Husband, Son Attack Doctor After Wife Dies In Federal Medical Centre
An angry man and his son on Tuesday, December 20, 2022, attacked a medical doctor and a nurse at the Federal Medical Centre, Idi-Aba, Abeokuta, following the death of his wife.
The man-son fighting team had descended heavily on the medical practitioners around 2am on Tuesday, December 20, 2022, shortly after they were informed of the 53-year-old woman’s death at the emergency ward of the FMC.
Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association in Ogun State, Dr Kunle Ashimi, condemned the attack in a chat with journalist, saying the woman died of heart failure.
Ashimi identified the assaulted Doctor as Pelumi Somorin, adding that the identity of the nurse was yet to be ascertained.
According to him, the father and son slapped the doctor when the death of their family member was announced to them.
Ashimi said the 53-year-old woman was presented to the hospital with a severe form of heart failure, which in itself, he said, showed that it would take more than a miracle for the woman to survive.
“In other words, she was at the end stage of heart failure. This was explained to the relatives when she was brought to the facility but, notwithstanding, we also believe in miracles and we feel that we should do our best to see what can happen,” he said.
”Unfortunately, this particular patient gave up the ghost around 2 am and the husband and son of the deceased descended on the doctor that had been taking care of the patient when the news of her death was announced.
“The doctor received a slap from each of them and subsequently they descended on her and she was only saved by people around.
”A nurse was also assaulted by these people,” he said.
The NMA Chairman stated that police were alerted, but despite their presence the son continued with the assault.
He informed that the DPO of Kemta Police Station, who led the police team to the scene, had eventually taken the duo to the station, where their statements were taken.
Meanwhile, Ashimi has warned Nigerians to desist from assaulting healthcare givers, vowing that anyone found guilty would be brought to book.
“We have decided that this will be the last and we will not stop at pleadings. We have decided to take the case to the court and we shall be in the court tomorrow.
“Every legal proceeding has been commenced and we shall take this case to the court.
“We want to make an appeal and as well as a warning to all those who use hospital services in Ogun state that the Nigerian Medical Association, as well as its affiliates and each individual doctor, will not henceforth accept the term ‘we are sorry’ from anybody who assaults any of our members.
“We will go to any length to prosecute such persons and we will not accept the pleading of anybody no matter how highly placed the person is,” he warned.
Abimbola Oyeyemi, the Police Public Relations Officer Ogun, could not be reached for comments.
Source: Aljazeera
