The mother of a 6-year-old boy who shot his first-grade teacher at a Virginia elementary school was charged Monday with felony child neglect and recklessly leaving a firearm so as to endanger a child, a report said.
Deja Nicole Taylor, 25, whose son shot teacher Abby Zwerner, 25, during class Jan. 6, was formally charged by a grand jury in Newport News.
The probe could call into question the actions of administrators at the Richneck Elementary School.
“Their investigation will continue as long as necessary to determine whether others are criminally responsible for the shooting of January 6,” the Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office said.
Zwerner was shot while teaching a class.
The mother was charged with felony child neglect and recklessly leaving a firearm so as to endanger a child. Billy Schuerman/The Virginian-Pilot via AP
Police look on as students return to Richneck Elementary in Newport News in January. APZwerner has filed a $40 million lawsuit in the case, claiming the first-grader had “a history of random violence.”
That history included “multiple reports that a firearm was on school property and likely in possession of a violent individual,” the suit said about the troubled youngster who was suspended for smashing Zwerner’s phone two days before the shooting.
“We know for a fact that there were at least three opportunities for them to stop this from happening,” one of her attorneys, Jeffrey Breit, told the “Today” show after filing the suit April 3.
The investigation may also hold the administrators at the Richneck Elementary School accountable. ABC4In the weeks after the shooting, it was revealed that school officials were warned by a teacher that the unnamed student had a gun in his backpack and was showing it to another student at recess.
Officials allegedly failed to act on the tip, and the principal of the school was ousted in the wake of the shooting.
The lawsuit mentions three defendants: Richneck’s former assistant principal, Ebony Parker, former school superintendent George Parker III and former principal Briana Foster Newton.
Zwerner says she is haunted by the look on the face of the student who shot her, and still has a bullet lodged in her chest from the “shocking” incident.
“I remember him pointing the gun at me, I remember the look on his face, I remember the gun going off,” she said last month on NBC’s “Today.”
“There’s some things that I’ll never forget. And I just will never forget the look on his face that he gave me while he pointed the gun directly at me,” she added. “That’s something that I will never forget. It’s changed me. It’s changed my life.”
