“Virginia School Shooting: Investigation Continues into How 6-Year-Old Got His Hands on a Gun”

2023-05-10 20:07:35

Four months after a 6-year-old Virginia boy shot and wounded his teacher while she was teaching, a lawyer for the boy’s mother says it’s still unclear how the boy got the gun.

Police said Deja Taylor legally purchased the gun used in the Jan. 6 shooting, and Taylor’s attorney, James Ellenson, said he believed his gun was secured on a high cabinet shelf with a trigger lock. In an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” ​​airing Wednesday, Ellenson said no one knows how he got it.

“People have talked to him about it, but I don’t know if any adult knows exactly how he got the gun,” Ellenson said.

For her part, Taylor said her son has ADHD, and while attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder can mildly affect others, she described her son as “off the wall,” saying he “never sits still.”

Ellenson has said the boy was under a care plan that included a family member accompanying him to class every day. The week of the shooting was the first that a parent was not in class with him. The change was made because the boy had started taking medication and was meeting his academic goals, according to Taylor.

The boy’s mother was charged last month with gross negligence and reckless storage of a firearm. The trial date is set for August 15. Ellenson has said that Taylor wants to reach a plea deal with prosecutors.

The gross negligence charge is punishable by up to five years in prison. The misdemeanor charge of recklessly storing a firearm carries up to one year in jail. The child will not be prosecuted.

Taylor said she feels responsibility for the shooting and apologized to the teacher, 25-year-old Abigail Zwerner.

“That’s my son, so as a parent, I’m obviously willing to take responsibility for him, because he can’t do it himself,” Taylor said. “I would really like to apologize…she got hurt. In fact, we were forming a kind of relationship with me having to be in the classroom. And she’s really a brilliant person.”

Zwerner was shot in the hand and chest while sitting at a reading table in her first-grade classroom at Richneck Elementary. She spent nearly two weeks in the hospital and had four surgeries, she recounted in an interview with NBC News.

Meanwhile, Zwerner filed a $40 million lawsuit accusing school officials of gross negligence and ignoring multiple warnings on the day of the shooting. Zwerner’s lawyers argue that school officials knew the boy “had a history of random violence” at school and at home, including an episode the previous year when he “strangled” his kindergarten teacher.

The boy was sent to another school, but allowed to return to first grade this school year, Zwerner’s lawsuit says.

The Newport News School Board alleges that his injuries fall under state workers’ compensation law and cannot be addressed through his lawsuit. The board rejected Zwerner’s claims that the boy should not have remained in his class, saying he was in the process of being evaluated and treated for possible ADHD, which causes inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity.

Even if she had been found to need additional services, state and federal laws would have been applied “in order to keep those children in the classroom with their peers when possible.”

1683751106
#Mother #Student #Shot #Teacher #Apologizes #NBC #Washington

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.