A 6-year-old first-grader is in police custody after he shot and wounded a teacher inside a Newport News, Virginia, elementary school classroom Friday afternoon, according to a news release from the Newport News Police Department. No students were harmed, the police department said in its statement.
The student shot the teacher with a handgun during an altercation and according to Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew, “the gunshot was not an accident,” the Associated Press reported.
The teacher — a woman in her 30s whose name has not been released — suffered serious injuries and was transported to a nearby hospital where she had “some improvement in the last update that we got,” Drew said Friday evening, per CNN.
Said Dr. George Parker, the superintendent of Newport News Public Schools: “We need to keep guns out of the hands of our young people,”
The boy’s identity will not be released due to his age, and it is not yet clear how he came to be in possession of the weapon, according to NBC News.