A six-year-old boy has left a teacher with life-threatening injuries after shooting her in a classroom, US police said.
No students or other staff were injured in the incident at Richneck Elementary School in Virginia, which officials described as an “an altercation” and “not an accident.”
The injured teacher, a woman in her 30s, was taken to hospital with Police Chief Steve Drew telling reporters she has begun to improve.
He added that the boy was found in the classroom with a gun and taken into custody.
“This was not an accidental shooting,” Mr. Drew said, adding that he wanted to know where the gun came from, reports Sky.
“We did not have a situation where someone was going around the school shooting,” he continued, reports Sky.
Newport News Public Schools confirmed on Facebook that parents and students had gathered outside the door of a high school and officials said there would be no classes Monday.
Joselin Glover, whose nine-year-old son Carlos attends Richneck Elementary School, said he received a text message from the school saying one person had been shot and another was in custody.
Carlos, who is in fourth grade, was on recess at the time but said he and his classmates soon hid in the back of a classroom.
“Most of the whole class was crying,” Carlos told the newspaper, reports Sky.
Principal George Parker said he was “shocked” and “disheartened” by the shooting and called for more to be done to prevent children from getting into the hands of firearms.
Mr. Parker explained that all school campuses are equipped with metal detectors for random searches, but they were not deployed at Richneck Elementary on Friday.
Newport News is a city of about 185,000 in southeast Virginia known for its shipyard that builds the country’s aircraft carriers and other ships for the United States Navy.
The school has about 550 students, according to the Virginia Department of Education website.
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