Newport News Police have turned over to prosecutors the results of their investigation into the Richneck Elementary School shooting.

The file was sent to the Newport News commonwealth’s attorney’s office at about 10 a.m. Tuesday — more than six weeks after a 6-year-old boy pulled a gun from his pocket and shot his first grade teacher in the chest.

“The detectives have completed their investigation, and completed their interviews,” Police Chief Steve Drew said Tuesday in a Facebook Live video chat.

Drew did not say what the detectives are recommending or who — if anyone — police believe should be charged with a crime. Any determination on charges will be made by Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard Gwynn.

Gwynn said Tuesday afternoon that he couldn’t give a time frame on how long it will take to review the case and decide on charges.

“There’s three binders full of information,” Gwynn said, adding that dozens of police officers responded to the scene and many hours of body camera footage need to be reviewed.

“We’re going to look at the facts, research the law, and based on the facts and the law, any person that we could charge and convict beyond a reasonable doubt, we will do so.”

The child himself cannot be charged, legal experts say, because he’s too young to have formed the legal intent needed to be charged with a crime. But adults involved in the case face possible criminal liability for allowing the shooting to happen.

Drew said the investigation has been comprehensive, with the challenge of interviewing the numerous first grade children who witnessed the shooting.

“It’s not something we wanted to rush through,” Drew said. “I totally understand people would like the case open and shut. That’s just not what we have here. I’m not going to rush those detectives through anything, and there’s a lot of things in the balance.”

Unlike with adults — who police can simply ask to come to headquarters for an interview — interviewing children at a neutral location is a more challenging undertaking, Drew said.

“We have to work with a child psychologist,” he said. “We have to get permission from parents. So all those things have to be coordinated to have an effective case.”

Aside from interviewing the child witnesses, Drew said, detectives had to interview Richneck faculty and staff, process forensics, look at several angles on surveillance cameras, and go through significant paperwork. Detectives received emails along the way that required some following up.

Detectives completed their part of the investigation last week, with sergeants and lieutenants also reviewing it. As prosecutors review the case going forward, Drew said they may have more questions that detectives will need to follow up on — such as re-interviewing a particular witness or getting some additional forensics.

“This is a lot more than just someone bringing a gun to school and that gun was found,” Drew said.

“This is someone that has suffered a gunshot wound, an aggravated assault. On top of the situation of, ‘How did that child get the gun? Where did it come from? Did the parents know? Did they not know? What role did they play?”

While he was sitting at his desk at about 2 p.m. Jan. 6, the boy pulled a handgun from his hoodie and shot his teacher, 25-year-old Abigail Zwerner, once. Police say the round went through her hand and struck her in the upper chest.

Though the bullet is still lodged inside Zwerner, she was released from Riverside Regional Medical Center the week of Jan. 17.

Police have said the child’s mother legally purchased the 9mm Taurus handgun, and that the boy brought it to school in his backpack. Through an attorney, the boy’s family has said the firearm was secured with a gun lock and stored on the top shelf of a bedroom closet.

Zwerner’s attorney maintained in a notice of claim sent to the Newport News Schools on Jan. 24 that Richneck’s assistant principal, Ebony Parker, ignored several stark warnings from teachers and other staffers that the boy had a gun on him that day.

That included declining to have the boy searched even after a fellow student told a teacher that the 6-year-old showed him the gun at recess and threatened to shoot him if he told anyone.

Under Virginia law, adults responsible for children getting access to guns can be charged with felonies or misdemeanors.

Someone “whose willful act or omission” in caring for a child “was so gross, wanton, and culpable as to show a reckless disregard for human life,” can be convicted of child neglect, the law says. That’s a Class 6 felony punishable by up to five years behind bars.

Parents or other adults can be charged with the misdemeanor charge of “allowing access to firearms by children.”

That charge — punishable by up to a year in jail — can be brought when someone “recklessly leaves a loaded, unsecured firearm in such a manner as to endanger the life or limb of any child under the age of fourteen.”

Drew said he “totally understands” the frustration among some in the public about the length of the investigation. But he said “we’re right on track of where I thought we would be” when the investigation began Jan. 6.

Peter Dujardin, 757-247-4749, pdujardin@dailypress.com