MOUNT MORRIS TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- A 6-year-old boy shot a schoolmate to death today in their first-grade classroom, authorities said. Police were investigating reports that the two youngsters may have had a playground scuffle the previous day.

A single shot was fired inside a classroom at Buell Elementary School near Flint about 10 a.m., Police Chief Eric King said.

It was not immediately clear if the shooting was accidental or intentional, but Genesee County Prosecutor Arthur A. Busch said authorities were investigating reports that a playground fight preceded the shooting.

``It would appear from the investigation so far that there may have been some sort of scuffle or quarrel on the playground the day before the shooting between this little boy and this little girl,'' Busch said.

The 6-year-old girl died about 10:30 a.m., hospital spokeswoman Stephanie Motschenbacher said.

The boy, was in the custody of the state Family Independence Agency, Busch said, adding that regardless of what an investigation reveals, it may be impossible to bring charges against the boy.

``There is a presumption in law that a child ... is not criminally responsible and can't form an intent to kill,'' he said. ``Obviously, he has done a very terrible thing today, but legally, he can't be held criminally responsible.''

President Clinton, in Florida for a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser, decried the shooting and challenged Americans to take gun safety into consideration during this year's presidential elections.

``How did that child get that gun? Why could the child fire the gun?'' Clinton said. ``If we have the technology today to put in these child safety locks, why don't we do it?''

Buell Elementary third-grader Corey Sutton, 9, said he heard a bang and thought a desk had fallen this morning.

Then, ``The principal came over the PA system and told teachers to shut their doors and lock them.

``I was scared, my heart was pounding,'' he said.

The teacher told students to line up and get their coats on, and then ``she told us what happened. A girl got shot, and the teacher started crying.''

About 22 pupils were inside the classroom when the shot was fired. About 500 children attend Buell Elementary.

Police closed off nearby streets, and parents picked up their children from a church across the street. The pupils who were in the classroom where the shooting happened were being questioned by police.

Crystal Watson, 8, who was in her third-grade class this morning, said she didn't know anything had happened until hearing sirens.

``We were told to stay in our class and stay calm,'' she told The Flint Journal. ``A couple of boys were crying, but everyone else was staying calm.''

A fourth-grader, Christopher Burch, 9, was upset because he has relatives in the first grade.

``My teacher told me a first-grader shot another first-grader, and I started crying because I thought it was my cousin or sister,'' he said. He found out minutes his relatives were not shot.

Busch said officials ``will get to the bottom of how that gun got in this little boy's hands.''

``We've had other schoolchildren take guns to elementary schools before ... but it never went this far with it,'' he said. ``It's a sign of our times where we have a fully armed society that doesn't take its responsibility to secure its weapons seriously.''

Busch said someone may face charges for allowing the boy to obtain the gun.

Freddie Booth Sr. of Mount Morris Township said he came to the school to look for his 8-year-old daughter, Fredricka.

``I don't believe this is happening,'' Booth told said. ``A first-grader shoots another first-grader. First-graders shouldn't be able to get a gun. I just want my daughter out of here. She has been traumatized, I'm sure.''

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), February 29, 2000

Answers

China Warns US Navy Over Taiwan

BEIJING (AP) -- With tensions rising over Taiwan, China's defense minister told the commander of U.S. Pacific forces today that Beijing would never relinquish its right to use military force to recover the island.

Chi Haotian told Adm. Dennis Blair that China wanted peaceful reunification with Taiwan, ``but China will never commit not to use force,'' China's government-run news agency, Xinhua, reported.

Blair has held two days of meetings in Beijing trying to keep communications between the militaries open ahead of Taiwan's March 18 presidential election. China has made new threats to use force against the island to pressure the three leading candidates, none of whom embraces reunification on Beijing's terms.

Chi said the United States should stop arms sales to Taiwan and ``do things that genuinely help promote the peaceful reunification of China,'' Xinhua said.

Fu Quanyou, chief of general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, warned Blair about a U.S. congressional bill that would increase cooperation between the U.S. and Taiwan militaries, Xinhua said.

Fu said the U.S. government should take measures to stop Congress from passing the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act. The Clinton administration opposes the measure and has threatened a veto.

Joseph Prueher, the U.S. Ambassador to China, told the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in Washington the proposed legislation does not enhance security for Taiwan and could increase tensions.

``Anything that exacerbates tensions in the Taiwan Strait diminishes security for Taiwan and also diminishes the opportunities for solutions,'' he said Monday.

China fears the act, if passed, could encourage Taiwan to move toward formally declaring independence, a move Beijing says would mean war.

China has long said it would attack Taiwan if it declared independence or foreign forces intervened. But in a significant escalation, Beijing announced last week it might wage war if Taiwan indefinitely puts off negotiations on unification.

In an apparent effort to ease international concern about the threat, Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen said today that foreign media wrongly interpreted last week's declaration as a major change in China's Taiwan policy.

``It has all along been our position that the Taiwan problem cannot be put off indefinitely. This is not a new formulation,'' Qian said in Beijing.

Qian also acknowledged, however, that last week's declaration was designed to ``press the Taiwan authorities to sit down to talks and negotiations with us.''

Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, who met with his Russian counterpart, Igor Ivanov, in Moscow today, reiterated that his country might use force to unify with Taiwan. Ivanov did not comment on the threat, but reasserted Moscow's firm support of China's claim of sovereignty over the island.

China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since they split among civil war in 1949. The United States acknowledges China's claim to Taiwan, but is obligated by law to help Taiwan maintain an adequate defense.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman argued today that Beijing's new threats against Taiwan should not affect an upcoming U.S. congressional vote on whether to support Chinese entry into the World Trade Organization by permanently granting low-tariff normal trade rights to China.

``We are resolutely opposed to any attempt to link these two questions,'' Zhu Bangzao said.

Blair is scheduled to travel Wednesday to the eastern city of Nanjing, headquarters for the regional military command that would form the bulk of any Chinese attack on Taiwan.

The U.S. commander's visit is meant to help repair military channels of communication that Beijing severed after U.S. warplanes hit the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia in May, killing three people. The dialogue resumed only last month.

Fu, the army chief of general staff, said today that Blair's visit marks the return of military relations ``onto the normal track,'' Xinhua said.

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), February 29, 2000.

"It's a sign of our times where we have a fully armed society that doesn't take its responsibility to secure its weapons seriously."

Its a sign of hollywood, divorce, diversity, and spoon fed horrors, lusts and murders.

United we stood, you wanted diversity? This was really diverse.

If i would have killed OJ Simpson, that little girl might still be alive.

-- Merlot (Merlot@cost.com), February 29, 2000.

...if you would have killed O.J., the conspiracy theorist's would still be trying to figure out "why" you did it and "who" was behind it!!! need a beer......

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), February 29, 2000.

What you won't hear about is the 20-30 million OTHER children who have guns in their homes and DIDN'T shoot anyone today...

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.CON), February 29, 2000.

I say make T.V. outlawed, leave the guns alone.

-- Sandy (rstyree@overland.net), February 29, 2000.

TECH32,

are you being serious or sarcastic? the reason this is being reported is because its news! in a similar vein, that's why people on this board have been posting Y2K related problems. They haven't posted about the millions of systems that are problem free, soo.... it's also why anything that is out of the ordinary makes it on the news, and a 6 year old gunman is out of the ordinary (hopefully!)

-- pikachu (pikachu@pokemon.org), February 29, 2000.

Listen to a tune by Billy Joel, "No Man's Land"

That about sums it up.

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), February 29, 2000.

It is not guns that are the problem as so many have said before it is the society turning into the kind of people they are.

I had a gun before I ever had a child and my children have never touched them unless told to do so in my company.

It is just like having kitchen knives; they are part of life and you teach your child their proper purpose and safety.

obo

-- Obo (hadagunbefore@hadachild.com), February 29, 2000.

It's not the guns, and it's not the television!!!! News Flash people wake up it's the "PARENTS". The parents have quit raising their children, if they were raising them they could teach these children the difference between right and wrong. When I say it's not the television I'm mean it's not the movies if anything it's the good ole six o' clock news. Thats where the kids see this shit, and also because of the news they see that they can get away with it. This problem could have ended so quickly if they would have taken the first little bastard that shot up some school outside and hung him. Put that on the news, Now if children took one look at a kid hanging by his neck that would put the fear of god in them.

Now if Mr. Clinton thinks these guns should have safety locks on the he is wrong. If that gun had been locked in a gun safe he wouldn't have gotten it. The thing is the kid should have known it was wrong to take or even touch the gun.

-- denden (denden@camasnet.com), March 01, 2000.

pikachu,

are you being serious or sarcastic?

Both.

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.CON), March 01, 2000.

Yes of course, parents lock up their guns, junk the TV (I did) or lock it up for controlled consumption, keep the schoolyards free of drug dealers etc

-- sir richard (richard.dale@unum.co.uk), March 01, 2000.

We know the victim was white. Does anyone know about the shooter?

And PLEASE don't tell me it doesn't matter. If the victim had been black, & the shooter white, THAT would have been the main headline. Riots might have followed. And we all know it.

-- hate crimes (for@little.tykes), March 01, 2000.

Im led to believe that the 6-year-old shooter is black. Apparently the boys father is currently in jail (has been for some time) and the gun was stolen last year. In a search of the boys home the authorities found a stolen shotgun and some other suspicious items yet to be identified. The little girl and boy were reported to have been involved in a playground confrontation of sorts the previous day. Why Ill bet she called him the N word and he came back and shot her. Hang on there good people of Flint, can Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton be far behind? This one will be a classic, as any inference of race will be played to the hilt. Take your time on this one folks, read the facts and draw your own conclusions.

-- Ra (tion@l.1), March 01, 2000.

A child is dead, a child has killed. Both are tragedies. What color the child IS or WAS----is not relevant unless one is looking for a scapegoat. I think the responsibility(which has no color by the way) for the behavior of the child killer belongs to the child and the parents of that child. But I think that the liberals and the Christian right might miss that rather "small" point to further their personal agendas,i.e., more worthless mantra chanting from the left "it takes a village to raise a child" or we as a society are responsible so more gun grabbing and further erosion of the Constitution AND proseltyzing and self-righteous indignation from the SAVED end of the spectrum. And the rest of us who still use that gray matter(from time to time,anyway)will continue to be in the minority, like we were when Clinton BACK into office.

-- Ma Kettle (mom@home.com), March 01, 2000.

A child is dead, a child has killed. Both are tragedies. What color the child IS or WAS----is not relevant unless one is looking for a scapegoat. I think the responsibility(which has no color by the way) for the behavior of the child killer belongs to the child and the parents of that child. But I think that the liberals and the Christian right might miss that rather "small" point to further their personal agendas,i.e., more worthless mantra chanting from the left "it takes a village to raise a child" or we as a society are responsible so more gun grabbing and further erosion of the Constitution AND proseltyzing and self-righteous indignation from the SAVED end of the spectrum. And the rest of us who still use that gray matter(from time to time,anyway)will continue to be in the minority, like we were when Clinton got BACK into office.

-- Ma Kettle (mom@home.com), March 01, 2000.