Teacher shot by six-year-old 'red flag' for US

A Virginia teacher who was critically wounded when she was 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.

Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones said on Saturday the condition of the teacher, a woman in her 30s, is "trending in a positive direction" as she remains hospitalised.

Police Chief Steve Drew met with the teacher and her family on Saturday morning. "She has improved and is currently listed in stable condition," police said in a news release.

The boy shot and wounded the teacher with a handgun in a first-grade classroom on Friday at Richneck Elementary School, according to authorities.

Drew said the shooting was not accidental and was part of an altercation.

Police declined to describe what led to the altercation or any other details about what happened in the classroom, citing the ongoing investigation.

Jones also declined to reveal details of the shooting, or say how the boy got access to the gun or who owns the weapon.

"This is a red flag for the country," Jones said.

"I do think that after this event, there is going to be a nationwide discussion on how these sorts of things can be prevented."

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'System not designed to deal with it'

Virginia law does not allow 6-year-olds to be tried as adults.

In addition, a 6-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 authority, though, to revoke a parent’s custody and place a child under the purview of the Department of Social Services.

"We are ensuring he has all the services that he currently needs right now," Jones said.

Experts who study gun violence said the shooting represents an extremely rare occurrence of a young child bringing a gun into school and wounding a teacher.

"It's very rare and i'’s not something the legal system is really designed or positioned to deal with," said researcher David Riedman, founder of a database that tracks US school shootings dating back to 1970.

He said that he's only aware of three other shootings caused by six-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.

Riedman said he only knows of one other instance of a student younger than that causing gunfire at a school, in which a five-year-old student brought a gun to a Tennessee school in 2013 and accidentally discharged it. 

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'Not so rare' incident

Daniel W. Webster, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who studies gun violence, agreed that a six-year-old shooting a teacher at school is extremely unusual, but he said his research shows that instances of young children accessing loaded guns and shooting themselves or others unintentionally in homes or other settings are rising.

"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.

Investigators were trying to figure out where he obtained the handgun.

Parents and students were reunited at a gymnasium, Newport News Public Schools said via 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 fifth grade, according to the Virginia Department of Education’s website.

"Today our students got a lesson in gun violence," said George Parker III, Newport News schools superintendent.

"And what guns can do to disrupt, not only an educational environment, but also a family, a community."

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