The six-year-old boy accused of shooting his first grade teacher, Abigail Zwerner, in January reportedly boasted about the incident in the aftermath, according to newly unsealed court documents.
The boy allegedly made several statements to a reading specialist who stepped into the classroom after hearing a gunshot and restrained the boy until police arrived.
“I did it. I got my mom’s gun last night,” the boy admitted.
The shooting occurred January 6 at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, shortly after the students returned from recess.
When Zwerner, who survived the shooting, separated her students into two groups for a reading exercise, the six-year-old pulled out a gun and pointed it at her.
“What are you doing with that?” Zwerner asked before the boy fired a shot at her.
The first grade teacher was hit in the hand and upper torso. She, along with several students ran from the classroom.
Amy Kovac, the school’s reading specialist, witnessed Zwerner run past her in the hallway while bleeding.
When Kovac entered the classroom she found the six-year-old standing by his desk, arms folded, and a handgun on the floor.
She grabbed the boy’s hand and calmly walked him to the front of the room where she called police.
“While I was holding him, he told me he had gotten his mom’s gun the night before and put it in his backpack,” Kovac told The Washington Post. “He also told me he only had time to load one bullet.”
“I shot the b—- dead,” Kovac said the boy told her as the two waited for authorities to arrive.
Court documents also mention a previous incident involving the same child. A retired teacher told police the child began “choking her to the point she could not breathe.”
The student’s family previously stated he deals with an “acute disability,” and part of his care plan involves one of his parents being present at school. However, neither parent was at school the day of the shooting.
The boy has not been charged; however, his mother, Deja Taylor, has been charged with felony child neglect and a misdemeanor count of leaving a firearm in a way that could endanger a child.
It’s unclear how the boy obtained the firearm because Taylor stated her gun was in her purse with a trigger lock on a high shelf.
Zwerner filed a $40 million lawsuit in April, alleging school administrators were aware of the student’s “history of random violence” and did nothing to address it in the months before the shooting or the day of.
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