elementary school in the United States
First grader shoots at teacher: school board fired for ignoring warnings
An employee of the Richneck elementary school wipes a tear from her eye during a vigil for the teacher who was shot
© Billy Schürmann / DPA
A first grader shot and seriously injured a teacher in the United States. Then it became known: The school management had previously received three specific warnings and did not react. Now she has been deposed.
At an elementary school in the small town of Newport, Virginia, a first-grader shot his teacher, seriously injuring her. The incident happened two and a half weeks ago and is now having its first consequences. The school board removed the chief of the school district’s public schools Wednesday night. The vice principal of Richneck Elementary School, where the incident happened, also resigned, a local broadcaster reported.
The six-year-old took a pistol to school on January 6 and shot his teacher in the chest. The 25-year-old suffered life-threatening injuries. No one was hurt except her. According to the police, the teacher was able to get all the students out of the classroom. The teacher is on the mend, her lawyer said on Wednesday. The bullet is still in the victim’s body and recovery will take a long time, a lawyer said.
USA: Teacher wants to sue school administration
Now the teacher wants to sue the school administration, which she accuses of serious omissions. Concerned teachers warned the school management “three times within a few hours” on the day of the crime that the six-year-old was carrying a gun and threatening others, the victim’s lawyer said on Wednesday. The school management downplayed the warnings and did not react.
According to reports from the broadcaster NBC, shortly before the crime, the teacher texted a person close to him that the boy had a gun in his backpack and that the school administration was not doing anything about it. According to police information, the shot was preceded by a dispute. The incident took place in a classroom.
After the crime, it became known that the gun belonged to the boy’s mother. According to the police, she had legally acquired the gun and kept it at home. There the student took the gun and took it to school in a backpack. The police had repeatedly emphasized that the act was not an accident, but that the boy had deliberately shot the teacher.
Guns must be kept safe from children by law
Virginia law prohibits storing a loaded gun where it is accessible to children under the age of 14. School incidents involving such young shooters are also rare in the United States. According to an organization quoted by the New York Times, there have been 16 cases involving shooters under the age of ten since 1970. Six-year-olds were involved in three of them, and two of these three incidents were registered as accidental.
The events in Newport News underscore the continuing threat of gun violence in schools across the United States. In May, 19 children and two teachers were killed in an elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.