The shooting went down Friday at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, with the student opening fire on a female teacher ... according to police.
Cops say the teacher, who is in her 30s, suffered life-threatening injuries ... and the 6-year-old child is in police custody after using a handgun in the shooting.
It's interesting ... police say the shooting was not an accident, and it sounds like only a single shot was fired.
The school, which has about 550 students in kindergarten through fifth grade, was evacuated after the shooting ... with parents reuniting with their children outside a gymnasium door.
The school already canceled classes for Monday ... and the teacher's condition is said to be improving. The chief said the teacher, a woman in her 30s, suffered what he described as a life-threatening gunshot wound and was taken to a hospital.
The boy was taken into custody, the chief said. No one else was involved in the incident, he 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 chief said a handgun was used in the altercation and he wanted to know where it came from.
The shooting was isolated to a classroom at the school, Drew said.
"This was not a situation where we had a student, or any other individuals, going up and down the halls actively firing in a long shooting incident," Drew said.
Mayor Phillip Jones said the incident "hurts my heart."
"It's a dark day for Newport News," Jones said. "We're going to learn from this, and we're going to come back stronger."
Schools Superintendent George Parker III said the incident happened in a first-grade classroom.
"Today our students got a lesson in gun violence," Parker said.
"This is terrible," he added. "This is something that should never occur, and I think we're all in shock and we all understand that we have a lot of work to do as a community to make sure things like this don't occur."
Metal detectors are used randomly throughout the school district, Parker said. Classes won't be held at the school Monday. Drew said the female teacher – who is in her 30s – 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.
Drew, who had earlier said the teacher was in critical condition, said Friday evening her injuries were considered life-threatening but that there was “some improvement in the last update that we got.”
There were no other students involved, the chief said.
The investigation is ongoing, he added.
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