Local police say a six-year-old allegedly shot a teacher intentionally in Virginia on Friday, according to the Associated Press.
The Newport News police chief said the woman suffered life-threatening injuries and was taken to a nearby hospital. The shooting — which took place at Richneck Elementary School — didn’t harm anyone else, including students.
Steve Drew, police chief, said the teacher’s conditions have improved since earlier.
“We did not have a situation where someone was going around the school shooting,” Drew said in a press conference to reporters. “We had a situation in one particular location where a gunshot was fired.”
But he emphasized that the shooting was not accidental.
The child allegedly had a handgun and was taken into custody by police.
“We have been in contact with our commonwealth attorney and some other entities to help us best get services to this young man,” Drew said, according to CBS.
The incident happened in a first-grade classroom, according to the superintendent George Parker III.
“Today our students got a lesson in gun violence,” Parker said. “This is terrible … This is something that should never occur, and I think we’re all in shock and we all understand that we have a lot of work to do as a community to make sure things like this don’t occur.”
Parker said there are metal detectors throughout the school district, but they are used randomly.
Phillip Jones, mayor of Newport News, said that the shooting “hurts my heart.”
“It’s a dark day for Newport News,” Jones said. “We’re going to learn from this, and we’re going to come back stronger.”
Richneck Elementary School, which has approximately 550 students from kindergarten to 5th grade, said there will be no classes on Monday.
Newport News is a city with a population of more than 185,000 people in the southeast of Virginia known for building U.S. Navy vessels including aircraft carriers.