Photo: Tribune News Service
The elementary school where a six-year-old shot a teacher last Friday (January 6) will remain closed for the rest of the week.
Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew provided new details about the shooting during a press conference on Monday afternoon.
Drew said the teacher, Abby Zwerner, was instructing her class when the unidentified student pulled out a handgun and pointed it at her. Zwerner took a defensive position as the student fired a single shot. The bullet struck her hand and her abdomen.
Despite her injuries, Zwerner managed to get the other children out of the classroom. She then made it to the office, where school employees provided basic first aid until paramedics arrived.
Drew said that another school employee rushed into the classroom and restrained the child.
Drew said the shooting was intentional and that the six-year-old was taken into custody and interviewed with his mother present. He said that the firearm was legally purchased by the boy's mother. He did not say how the gun was stored or how the young boy managed to get a hold of it.
He did not provide any details about the motive for the shooting.
Zwerner is recovering in the hospital from the gunshot wound and is in stable condition. Drew said that when he spoke with her, the first question she asked was how her students were.
Lawonda Sample-Rusk, who has two grandchildren at the school, was at the school when the shooting occurred.
"She said I'm shot, I'm shot. Call 911," Sample-Rusk told WTKR reporter Kelsey Jones. "We only thought it was somewhere on her hand, but after looking further, she passed out on the floor, and then after looking further, it was another gunshot wound."
"Myself and the receptionist stayed pretty much mostly to her side because we know that the administrators had to do what they needed to do to make sure all of the children were safe," she added.
Sample-Rusk said her grandsons were in a different class at the time and that she had spoken with them about the shooting.
"They don't realize the height of this situation. However, I'm still talking to them about what happened on Friday, and I will continue to talk to them until they really get a full understanding on the magnitude of how things could've went," she said.