A prosecutor in Newport News, Virginia, said Wednesday that he would not seek charges against the 6-year-old boy who shot his elementary school teacher in January.
However, he has yet to decide whether any adults associated with the case could be held criminally liable.
“We don’t believe the law supports charging a 6-year-old with a criminal offense as serious as this one,” Commonwealth’s Attorney for Newport News Howard Gwynn told ABC News affiliate 13News Now.
The first grader took his mother’s gun to school and shot and seriously injured 25-year-old Abigail Zwerner on Jan. 6. He was taken into custody and has received mental health treatment in a hospital, according to his family’s attorney.
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On Wednesday, Gwynn also told NBC News that the “prospect that a 6-year-old can stand trial is problematic.”
Gwynn said a decision about whether to charge anyone else, such as the boy’s parents, had not yet been made.
The boy’s mother legally purchased the gun, police said. An attorney for the child’s family, James Ellenson, said the gun was stored with a trigger lock on the top shelf of a closet and the family does not know how he got it.
The family also said that the young boy had an “acute disability” that included an allowance for one of his parents to accompany him to class every day. The week of the shooting was the first time a parent was not present.
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“Our objective is not just to do something as quickly as possible,” Gwynn said. “Once we analyze all the facts, we will charge any person or persons that we believe we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt committed a crime.”
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