A six-year-old student has shot and wounded a teacher at his school in Virginia during an altercation inside a first-grade classroom, police and school officials said.
The shooting happened on Friday at Richneck Elementary School in the town of Newport News.
The teacher — a woman in her 30s — suffered life-threatening injuries, but no students were wounded, according to Newport News police chief Steve Drew.
The teacher remained hospitalised but was "trending in a positive direction", according to a media release on Saturday.
Chief Drew has met with her and her family.
He added that the student and teacher had known each other in a classroom setting.
"We did not have a situation where someone was going around the school shooting," Mr Drew said.
He said the boy had a handgun in the classroom, and investigators were trying to figure out where he obtained it.
According to police the shooting was not accidental and was part of an altercation, although they declined to say what had led to the incident citing the ongoing investigation.
Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones said it was a "red flag for the country".
"I do think that after this event, there is going to be a nationwide discussion on how these sorts of things can be prevented," he said.
He declined to say where the 6-year-old was being held.
Joselin Glover, whose son is in fourth grade, told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper that she had received a text from the school stating one person had been shot and another was in custody.
"My heart stopped," she said.
"I was freaking out, very nervous. Just wondering if that one person was my son."
Carlos, her nine-year-old son, was at recess. But he said he and his classmates were soon holed up in the back of a classroom.
"Most of the whole class was crying," Carlos told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper.
Parents and students were reunited at a gymnasium door, Newport News Public Schools said via Facebook.
Newport News is a city of about 185,000 people in south-eastern Virginia known for its shipyard, which builds the nation's aircraft carriers and other US Navy vessels.
Virginia law limits the ways in which a child can be punished if found guilty of using a firearm to wound or kill someone.
"Today our students got a lesson in gun violence and what guns can do to disrupt, not only an educational environment, but also a family, a community," Newport News schools superintendent George Parker said.
Richneck Elementary School officials said there would be no classes at the school on Monday.
AP/ABC
