Boy, 6, who shot Virginia teacher used mother’s legally owned gun, police say

Published

3 years ago

January 10, 2023

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A six-year-old pupil who shot his teacher used a gun that belonged to his mother and was legally owned, police have said.

Authorities said there was no fight or physical struggle before the boy opened fire on Abby Zwerner as she taught a lesson at a school in the US state of Virginia.

Police chief Steve Drew said the boy had taken the 9mm handgun from his family home in a backpack on the day of the shooting.

Providing the first detailed description of a shooting that has shocked the city of Newport News and a country now accustomed to gun violence, he told a news conference: “What we know today is that she was providing instruction. He displayed a firearm, he pointed it and he fired one round.”

Mr Drew had previously said the shooting was not accidental and had declined to elaborate.

He said he wanted to clarify remarks he made just after the incident on Friday, when he said there was an “altercation” before the shooting.

The officer said it was more like an “interaction” between the boy and his 25-year-old first-grade teacher at Richneck Elementary School.

But he also reiterated that the shooting was “not accidental.”

“It was intentional,” he said.

Teacher hailed a hero

Ms Zwerner put up her hand in a defensive position when the weapon fired, and the bullet went through her hand and into her upper chest, Mr Drew added.

While her injuries were initially considered life-threatening, she has improved and is currently listed in stable condition at a hospital.

Mr Drew hailed Ms Zwerner as a hero for quickly ushering her students out of the classroom after she was shot, saying surveillance video showed she was the last person to leave her classroom.

“She made a right turn and started down the hallway, and then she stopped… She turned around and make sure every one of those students was safe,” the police chief said.

Mr Drew said a school employee rushed into the classroom and physically restrained the boy after hearing the gunshot.

He said the boy became “a little combative” and struck the employee, but police officers arrived and escorted him out of the building and into a police car.

The child has been held at a medical facility since an emergency custody order and temporary detention order were issued on Friday, Mr Drew said.

He said a judge would decide what the next steps are for the boy. His mother has been interviewed by police, but it is currently unclear whether she could potentially face any charges.

As questions loomed about the child and his mother, Ms Zwerner’s friend told a crowd gathered at a vigil on Monday night that the first-grade teacher has shown “dedication and love for what she does day in and day out”.

Rosalie List, a 2nd grade teacher at Richneck, said: “Abby is a warrior and she demonstrates mental and physical strength every day. I’m so proud of her.”

Lauren Palladini, Richneck’s school counsellor, told the crowd that Ms Zwerner was “sweet”.

“She’s thoughtful. She’s caring. And she’s been one of the most amazing teachers that I’ve been blessed to interact with,” the school counsellor added.

Amanda Bartley, who teaches at another elementary school in the city, asked everyone to pray for the injured teacher and to “pray for the young man who did this.”

Speaking to reporters, she said many questions remained unanswered.

She said: “How did he get the gun? Why wasn’t it locked up? A good gun owner knows that you lock up your weapon. You have a safety on. You keep the ammunition separate from the weapon itself.”

What will happen to mother and boy now?

Gun owners can be prosecuted under a Virginia law that prohibits anyone from recklessly leaving a loaded, unsecured gun in a manner that endangers the life or limb of children under 14.

A violation of that law is a misdemeanour, punishable by a maximum jail sentence of one year and a maximum fine of $2,500.

Virginia does not have a law that requires unattended guns to be stored in a particular way or a law that requires gun owners to affirmatively lock their weapons.

“Virginia definitely has a weaker law than many other states that have child access prevention laws,” said Allison Anderman, senior counsel and director of local policy at Giffords Law Centre to Prevent Gun Violence.

Legal experts said that even though it was theoretically possible under Virginia law to criminally charge a six-year-old child, there are numerous obstacles to doing so and that it was highly unlikely that any prosecutor would even try.

“It’s virtually impossible to imagine a six-year-old being found competent to stand trial,” said Andrew Block, a professor and the University of Virginia School of Law, who was the director of Virginia’s Department of Juvenile Justice from 2014 to 2019.

World

With one of his proudest achievements on the line, will Trump force Netanyahu’s hand?

Published

3 hours ago

September 23, 2025

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With one of his proudest achievements on the line, will Trump force Netanyahu's hand?

The moment could have felt so different. It should have felt so different.

It was supposed to come a long time ago, and it was supposed to be the outcome of a peace process, of reconciliation, of understanding, of coexistence and of healing.

If it had happened the right way, then we’d be celebrating two states living alongside each other, coexisting, sharing a capital city.

As it happened: France recognises Palestinian state

Instead, the recognition of Palestine as a state comes out of the rubble of Gaza.

It has come as a last-ditch effort to save all vanishing chances of a Palestinian state.

Essentially, the countries which have recognised Palestine here at the UN in New York are jumping to the endpoint and hope to now fill in the gaps.

Those gaps are huge.

Even before the horror of the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, there was almost no realistic prospect of a two-state solution.

Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and Benjamin Netanyahu’s divide-and-conquer strategy for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza had made reconciliation increasingly hard.

The Hamas attack set back what little hope there was even further, while settlement expansion by the Israelis in the West Bank accelerated since then.

The same questions which have made all this so intractable remain.

How to share a capital city? Who controls Jerusalem’s Old City, where the holy sites are located? If it’s shared, then how?

What happens to the settlements in the West Bank? If land swaps take place, then where? What happens to Gaza? Who governs the Palestinians?

And how are the moderates on both sides emboldened to dominate the discourse and the policy?

Hope rests with Trump

Right now, Palestinian extremism is holding out in Gaza with the hostages, and Israeli extremism is dominant on the other side, with Netanyahu now threatening to fully annex the West Bank as a reaction to the recognition declarations at the UN.

It all feels pretty bleak and desperate. If there is cause for some hope, it rests with Donald Trump.

Over the next 24 hours in New York, he will meet key Arab and Muslim leaders from the Middle East and Asia to present his latest plan for peace in Gaza.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan will all participate in the meeting.

They will listen to his plan, some may offer peacekeeping troops (a significant development if they do), some may offer to provide funding to rebuild the strip and, crucially, all are likely to tell him that his Abraham Accords plan – to forge ahead with diplomatic normalisation between Muslim nations and Israel – will not happen if Israel pushes ahead with any West Bank annexation.

Netanyahu will address the UN at the end of the week, before travelling to the White House on Monday, where he will tell Trump what he plans to do next in both Gaza and the West Bank.

If Trump wants his Abraham Accords to expand and not collapse – and remember the accords represent a genuine diplomatic game changer for the region, one Trump is rightly proud of – then he will force Netanyahu to stop in Gaza and stop in the West Bank.

He is the only man in the world who can.

World

Israel is increasingly ostracised – and no matter how strong its army, it’s not a good place to be

Published

5 hours ago

September 23, 2025

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Israel is increasingly ostracised - and no matter how strong its army, it's not a good place to be

Emmanuel Macron was in his element. Touring the UN’s main hall, hugging fellow leaders before taking to the podium.

He was here to make history. France, the country that carved up the Middle East over a hundred years ago along with Britain, finally giving the Palestinians what they believe is long overdue.

As it happened: France recognises Palestinian state

Yvette Cooper witnessed the event looking on. Her prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, did the same over the weekend. Foregoing such hallowed surroundings, he beat the French to it by a day.

“Peace is much more demanding, much more difficult than all wars,” said Macron, “but the time has come.”

There were cheers as he recognised the state of Palestine.

The time for what? Not for peace that is for sure. The war in Gaza rages and the West Bank simmers with settler violence against Palestinians.

The French and British believe Israel is actively working against the possibility of a Palestinian state. Attacks on Palestinians, land seizures, the relentless pace of settlement construction is finishing off the chances of a two-state solution to the conflict, so time for unilateral action they believe.

Without the horizon of a state of their own, Palestinians will resort to more and more extreme means.

The Israelis say they have already done so on 7 October and this move only rewards the wicked extremism of Hamas.

But the Netanyahu government has undeniably sought to divide and weaken the Palestinians and has always opposed a Palestinian state.

Israel still has the support of Donald Trump, but opinion polls suggest even in America public sentiment is moving against them. That shift will be hard to reverse.

More than three quarters of the UN’s member nations now recognise a state of Palestine, four out of five of the security council’s permanent members.

The move is hugely problematic. Where exactly is the state, what are its borders, will it now be held to account for its extremists, who exactly is its government?

But more and more countries believe it had to happen. That leaves Israel increasingly ostracised and for a small country in a difficult neighbourhood that is not a good place to be, however strong it is militarily.

World

China to evacuate 400,000 after ‘super’ typhoon hits Philippines and Taiwan

Published

12 hours ago

September 22, 2025

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China to evacuate 400,000 after 'super' typhoon hits Philippines and Taiwan

China will evacuate 400,000 people over a super typhoon that slammed into the Philippines and Taiwan today.

Super Typhoon Ragasa, which is heading to southeastern China, has sustained winds of 134mph.

Thousands of people have already been evacuated from homes and schools in the Philippines and Taiwan, with hundreds of thousands more to leave their homes in China.

Filipino forecasters said it slammed into Panuitan Island off Cagayan province with gusts of up to 183mph on Monday.

More than 8,200 were evacuated to safety in Cagayan while 1,220 fled to emergency shelters in Apayao, which is prone to flash floods and landslides.

Domestic flights were suspended in northern provinces hit by the typhoon, and fishing boats and inter-island ferries were prohibited from leaving ports over rough seas.

In Taiwan’s southern Taitung and Pingtung counties, closures were ordered in some coastal and mountainous areas along with the Orchid and Green islands.

Officials in southern Chinese tech hub, Shenzhen, said they planned to relocate around 400,000 people including people in low-lying and flood-prone areas.

Shenzhen’s airport added it will halt flights from Tuesday night.

In Fujian province, on China’s southeast coast, 50 ferry routes were suspended.

According to China’s National Meteorological Centre, the typhoon will make landfall in the coastal area between Shenzhen city and Xuwen county in Guangdong province on Wednesday.

A tropical cyclone with sustained winds of 115mph or higher is categorised in the Philippines as a super typhoon.

The term was adopted years ago to demonstrate the urgency tied to extreme weather disturbances.

Ragasa was heading west and was forecast to remain in the South China Sea until at least Wednesday while passing south of Taiwan and Hong Kong, before landfall on the China mainland.

The Philippines’ weather agency warned there was “a high risk of life-threatening storm surge with peak heights exceeding three metres within the next 24 hours over the low-lying or exposed coastal localities” of the northern provinces of Cagayan, Batanes, Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur.

Power was cut out on Calayan island and in the entire northern mountain province of Apayao, west of Cagayan, disaster officials said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from Ragasa, which is known locally in the Philippines as Nando.

On Monday, Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr suspended government work and all classes on Monday in the capital, Manila, and 29 provinces in the main northern Luzon region.