U.S : School to reopen after 6‑year-old shot teacher

The Vir­ginia ele­men­tary school where a 6‑year-old boy shot and killed a teacher a few weeks ago will have increased secu­ri­ty, a new prin­ci­pal and stu­dents returning.

Rich­neck Ele­men­tary School in New­port News was due to reopen on Mon­day, more than three weeks after the Jan. 6 shoot­ing. Police say the boy brought a 9mm pis­tol to the school and delib­er­ate­ly shot Abby Zwern­er, a first grade teacher. The 25-year-old teacher was hos­pi­tal­ized for near­ly two weeks and is now recu­per­at­ing at her home.

The New­port News, which has a pop­u­la­tion of about 185,000 and is known for its ship­ping indus­try, was shocked. It also raised nation­al ques­tions about school safe­ty as to how such a young boy could pick up a gun and shoot a teacher.

Days after the shoot­ing, the New­port News Board of Edu­ca­tion announced that all schools in the dis­trict would have met­al detec­tors. Rich­neck has two met­al detec­tors and two secu­ri­ty guards, said Michelle Price, a dis­trict spokesperson. 

Secu­ri­ty guards were sta­tioned at Rich­neck and anoth­er ele­men­tary school pri­or to film­ing. No offi­cers were in Rish­nek at the time of the shooting.

Secu­ri­ty guards will also have portable met­al detec­tors. We also installed new doors in class­rooms with­out doors and repaired or replaced others.

The prin­ci­pal and vice-prin­ci­pal resigned after the shoot­ing, and new admin­is­tra­tors will run the school as part of a staff turnover.

Karen Lynch, who has worked at the New­port News for 17 years, said in a let­ter to Rich­neck­’s fam­i­ly last week that he now works at Rich­neck as a “spe­cial assign­ment.” Lynch said the emo­tion­al sup­port ser­vices that sup­port spe­cial­ists, social work­ers and licensed ther­a­pists have pro­vid­ed to stu­dents, fam­i­lies and staff will con­tin­ue once schools reopen.

School admin­is­tra­tor George Park­er, who came under fire from par­ents and teach­ers after the shoot­ing, was fired from the school board last week.

Park­er tes­ti­fied that at least one school admin­is­tra­tor received infor­ma­tion that the boy may have brought a gun to school. The boy’s back­pack was searched, but no weapons were found.

Diane Toscano, Zwern­er’s attor­ney, said that on the day of the shoot­ing, Rich­neck offi­cials warned admin­is­tra­tors three times that the boy was car­ry­ing a gun and threat­en­ing oth­er stu­dents, but the admin­is­tra­tors were not alert­ed to police. 

They did­n’t call him, kick the boy out of his class, or lock down the school.

Police say the 9mm pis­tol was pur­chased legal­ly by the boy’s moth­er. In a state­ment released through his lawyer, the boy’s fam­i­ly said the gun was “secured.”

Attor­ney James Ellen­son told the Asso­ci­at­ed Press that, to his knowl­edge, the gun was in his moth­er’s clos­et, on a shelf over six feet high, and had a trig­ger lock that required a key.