A six-year-old boy opened fire in an elementary classroom in the eastern US state of Virginia, seriously injuring a teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newsport News, police said. According to media report, no students were hurt in the incident.
"The individual is a six-year-old student. He is right now in police custody," local police chief Steve Drew told a news conference, adding that "this was not an accidental shooting." Police said that the victim was a teacher in her 30s and her injuries were believed to be life-threatening.
"I'm in shock, and I'm disheartened," said the city's superintendent of schools, George Parker. "We need the community's support to make sure that guns are not available to youth."
In the United States, school shootings are a common occurrence. One recent tragedy involved an 18-year-old gunman who killed 19 children and two instructors in Uvalde, Texas, last May. According to the Gun Violence Archive database, there were 44,000 gun-related fatalities in the US last year; roughly half of them were homicides, accidents, and self-defence and the other half were suicides.