6-year-old in custody after shooting teacher in Virginia, police chief says.
A 6-year-old boy was taken into police custody after he shot a teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, Friday afternoon, Police Chief Steve Drew said in a news conference.
“The individual is a 6-year-old student,” Drew said. “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 the female teacher was shot inside a classroom and added that “this was not an accidental shooting.”
The police chief said there was an altercation between the teacher and the student, who had the firearm, and that a single round was fired. No other students were involved, he added.
Authorities and the Newport News public school district did not identify the teacher or the student involved in the shooting.
But the teacher was identified by her alma mater, James Madison University, as Abby Zwerner.
“All of us as James Madison University are deeply saddened by the reported tragic shooting of JMU alumna Abby Zwerner,” university President Jonathan R. Alger said in a statement posted on the school’s official Facebook page.
“JMU is prepared to support those impacted by this incident now and in the weeks to come,” the statement added.
Zwerner is listed as a first-grade teacher in Richneck Elementary School’s staff directory.
Teacher in stable condition, police say
In a Saturday statement, the Newport News Police Department said the teacher had improved and was listed in stable condition, adding the chief had met with her and her family.
“Chief Drew asked that you continue to keep her in your thoughts and prayers,” police said. A day earlier, the chief had described the teacher’s injuries as life-threatening.
An investigation is ongoing, police said.
“We’ll get the investigation done, there’s questions we’ll want to ask and find out about. I want to know where that firearm came from, what was the situation,” Drew said in Friday’s news conference.
Elementary school closed Monday and Tuesday
The elementary school will remain closed Monday and Tuesday to give the community “time to heal,” Principal Briana Foster Newton said in a statement, adding that officials will update families if the closure is extended.
“My heart is aching for our school community,” the principal said. “My thoughts and prayers remain with our teacher who was seriously injured, and our students and our staff, who are dealing with the aftereffects of this tragedy.”
In a separate statement, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said his administration offered assistance in response to the shooting and “stand at the ready to help in any way we can.”
“I am continuing to monitor the situation and am praying for the continued safety of all students and the community,” the governor said Friday.
Speaking during Friday’s news conference, Newport News Public Schools Superintendent Dr. George Parker said he was saddened by the shooting and called for better gun safety measures from the community to keep firearms away from children.
“I’m in shock, and I’m disheartened,” Parker said in Friday’s news conference. “We need to educate our children and we need to keep them safe.”
“We need the community’s support, continued support, to make sure that guns are not available to youth and I’m sounding like a broken record today, because I continue to reiterate that: that we need to keep the guns out of the hands of our young people,” the superintendent said.
READ: Iran executes karate champion and volunteer children’s coach amid crackdown on protests
Officials are also looking into any past instances that may have transpired before the shooting, Parker added.
Source: cnn.com
The Ghana Education News Editorial Team is a specialized collective of education researchers, journalists, and policy analysts dedicated to providing high-fidelity reporting on the Ghanaian academic landscape. Serving as a primary bridge between governing bodies—including the Ghana Education Service (GES) and WAEC—and the public, the team leverages over a decade of combined experience to serve students, parents, and educators nationwide.
Lead Architect & Editor-in-Chief
The team is led by Wisdom Kojo Eli Hammond, a distinguished Ghanaian Edu-Tech Entrepreneur, AI Solutions Developer, and Product Architect with over 25 years of cross-disciplinary experience in education, finance, and digital media. Wisdom is the visionary force behind SkulManager, Ghana’s premier school management ecosystem, and the Lead Consultant at Education-News Consult.
A self-taught innovator, professional Web Designer, and regular columnist on GhanaWeb, Wisdom engineered SkulManager.com as the only platform strictly tailored to the GES Curriculum. His technical leadership has redefined educational assessment through a Hybrid Marking Ecosystem, pioneering the BECE and WASSCE Home Mock services—a unique fusion of WAEC-trained human examiners and advanced AI marking engines operational since 2022.
Wisdom’s 360-degree view of institutional challenges is grounded in his tenure as College President and Lecturer at Pinnacle College (Achimota), as well as his background as a school administrator and accountant. He is a dedicated lifelong learner currently advancing his studies at the Accra Institute of Technology (AIT), with academic ties to the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA).
An accomplished author, his works include Returnees of the Dead Forest (UK Published), Simplified Beacon of Light (850+ Q&A), and The Leader in Me. A foundational pillar of the award-winning NGO Human Rights Reporters Ghana (HRRG), Wisdom is committed to building intelligent systems that solve societal problems and prepare the next generation of Ghanaian students for a digital future.
Contact: 0550360658 | Portals: GhanaEducation.org, GhanaEducationNews.org, SkulManager.com, BECEPrep.com. Educationnewsconsult.com etc