Authorities are struggling to understand how a child so young could be involved in a school shooting, Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones said Saturday.
RICHMOND, Va. — A Virginia teacher who was critically injured when she was shot by a 6-year-old student in Newport News is showing signs of improvement as authorities struggle to understand how a child so young could be involved in a school shooting, the city’s mayor said Saturday.
Jones declined to release additional details Saturday about what led to the altercation, citing the ongoing police investigation. He also would not comment on how the boy got access to the gun or who owns the weapon.“I do think that after this event, there is going to be a nationwide discussion on how these sorts of things can be prevented.”
He said Saturday that he’s only aware of three other shootings caused by 6-year-old students in the time period he’s studied. Those include the fatal shooting of a fellow student in 2000 in Michigan and shootings that injured other students in 2011 in Texas and 2021 in Mississippi. “A 6 year old gaining access to a loaded gun and shooting him/herself or someone else, sadly, is not so rare,” he said in an email.
He said the boy had a handgun in the classroom, and investigators were trying to figure out where he obtained it.The police chief declined to discuss what contact investigators have had with the boy’s parents. Richneck has about 550 students who are in kindergarten through fifth grade, according to the Virginia Department of Education’s website. School officials have already said that there will be no classes at the school on Monday.
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