Disturbing, newly released body camera footage shows the moment a 6-year-old boy was taken into custody inside a Virginia classroom shortly after shooting his teacher in 2023.
The video, which is edited to protect the boy’s anonymity, shows the first grader cursing at police officers and a reading specialist at Richneck Elementary in Newport News while being physically restrained after firing a pistol he brought to school.
Abby Zwerner, who was wounded in the hand and chest, escaped the room with her 16 other students before collapsing in the school office. She survived after multiple surgeries and a nearly two-week hospital stay.
“Fuck you, bitch,” the boy tells the reading specialist as she holds him from behind.
“Both y’all want a fucking piece of me, bitch?” the boy tells the approaching officers.
“We have some small handcuffs?” a police officer asks.
After one of the officers in the room locates a firearm, the boy says: “I stole that from my mom.”
“I don’t care if you call backup. I don’t care if I go to jail, bitch,” the boy tells the officers.
The boy later told authorities that he took the firearm from his mom’s purse, which was on top of a dresser at home.
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The video was released by Newport News Circuit Court after The Virginian-Pilot and the Daily Press filed a motion for it to be unsealed, arguing that keeping it from the public violated the First Amendment.
The outlets said they’re aware of potential public backlash, due to the sensitivity of the matter, but argued that “it tells us something about the life of this child, himself a victim in this saga, and the circumstances educators at Richneck must have faced.”
The child’s mother, Deja Taylor, was sentenced in 2023 to nearly four years in prison for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges. She was released in February, according to The Virginian-Pilot.
In a 2024 interview with WAVY, the boy’s great-grandfather discussed raising the child while his mother served out her prison sentence.
“He was a victim before that date,” Calvin Taylor, a retired U.S. Army drill sergeant, told the news outlet of his great-grandson.
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The boy’s mother had tried to get help from social services before the shooting, he said, but “there was no follow-up.” He said he’s grateful that the child, who was not criminally charged because of his age, “understands that it was an egregious mistake and that he’s not going to be defined by that mistake.”
Zwerner, who is reportedly no longer teaching, was awarded $10 million from a jury last year after accusing the school’s former assistant principal, Ebony Parker, of repeatedly ignoring warnings that the child had a gun. Parker has appealed that verdict.