[New post] Mother of 6-year-old who shot first-grade teacher pleads guilty to child neglect
gqlshare posted: "NEWPORT NEWS — The mother of a 6-year-old boy who garnered national headlines earlier this year when her son shot his first-grade teacher during class pleaded guilty Tuesday to a single count of felony child neglect.It was the second time in the past two " The Willits News
NEWPORT NEWS — The mother of a 6-year-old boy who garnered national headlines earlier this year when her son shot his first-grade teacher during class pleaded guilty Tuesday to a single count of felony child neglect.
It was the second time in the past two months that Deja Nicole Taylor entered a guilty plea to charges relating to the Jan. 6 shooting of Richneck Elementary School teacher Abby Zwerner. The shot struck the 25-year-old educator in her hand and chest and left her seriously injured.
In June, Taylor pleaded guilty in federal court to having a firearm while also possessing marijuana and lying on a federal gun background check about her drug use. She's due to be sentenced in that case Oct. 18. Though the federal charges carry up to 25 years combined, prosecutors have agreed to ask for a term within the federal sentencing guidelines — between 18 months and two years.
The child neglect count Taylor pleaded to on Tuesday carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to ask for a term within state sentencing guidelines, which is expected to be no more than six months. But Circuit Judge Christopher Papile has the authority go above their recommendation. Sentencing was set for Oct. 27.
The Newport News commonwealth's attorney's office also agreed to drop a misdemeanor charge accusing Taylor of recklessly leaving a loaded gun where her son could access it.
Papile asked Taylor, 26, a series of questions Tuesday to ensure she understood what she was doing and the consequences of her plea. Standing with her left hand on her hip and her head tilted to the side, Taylor hesitated a couple times, including when asked if she was pleading guilty because she was in fact guilty, and if she understood that the judge could ignore the prosecutors' recommendation and give her the entire five years.
"It's just very emotional" for her, defense attorney James Ellenson said when asked by a reporter why Taylor seemed "irritated" during the hearing. "It's very upsetting to everybody."
When asked if his client took responsibility for her son's actions, Ellenson said, "Oh yeah. She feels very responsible. She feels very bad."
In this undated photo provided by her family and lawyers, Abigail Zwerner, a first-grade teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, is shown inside her classroom.
Newport News Commonwealth's Attorney Howard Gwynn issued a statement after the hearing in which he said his office was thinking of Zwerner and all the children and faculty impacted by the incident.
"The safety of our schools is of paramount importance, and we will continue to support the victims as they work through the effects of this incident," Gwynn wrote. The prosecutor has previously said the boy, identified in court papers as J.T., will not face any charges because of his age.
While Taylor has long maintained through her attorney that she kept her 9 mm Taurus semiautomatic handgun secured with a trigger lock and stored on a top shelf in a bedroom closet, a statement of facts entered into evidence Tuesday indicated that wasn't the case.
The statement said when police were interviewing the boy and his parents after the shooting, Taylor asked him how he got the gun. The boy replied he "stood on a drawer of her dresser, reached into her purse, and took it."
The boy was sitting at his desk when he suddenly pulled the gun from his front hoodie pocket, pointed it at Zwerner — seated at a reading table less than 10 feet away — and fired a single round.
When police arrived, they found the boy being restrained by a staff member in his classroom, the statement of facts said. The gun was lying on the floor nearby, with the slide open and additional rounds in its magazine. As the officers came into the room, the boy yelled, "(Expletive) you! I shot my teacher," then broke free from the staff member and punched her in the face, the statement said.
The boy told police the gun belonged to his mother and that he "stole it because I needed to shoot my teacher," the statement said.
During her interview with detectives, Taylor told them her son had been diagnosed with obstructive defiance disorder and took medication for it. She said that after he previously had gone into her purse and took her car keys, Child Protective Services created a safety plan requiring her to store her keys in a lockbox rather than her purse. After that, she stored her keys in the lockbox but continued to keep her gun in her purse, she said.
The statement of facts said a prior CPS report indicated the boy had played with a gun at his grandmother's house in June 2022. When asked about it, the boy said he "wanted to visit a gun range," the statement said.
In the weeks leading up to the shooting, the school had required one of the boy's parents to attend class with him because of his behavior problems. The week that it happened was the first he was allowed to attend without them.
Two days before the shooting, the boy grabbed Zwerner's phone from her, smashed it on the ground and said, "I'm never coming back to your room again, you b—-," according to the statement of facts in the case. He was suspended for one day after that. The day of the shooting was his first day back after the suspension.
At the June hearing in federal court, a statement of facts admitted to by both sides said Taylor was a heavy marijuana user. Federal agents found marijuana in her purse, bedrooms at two homes and a trash bag taken from her car, according to the statement.
But when she bought the handgun from a York County gun shop in July 2022, she checked a box on a federal background form that she was not an "unlawful user" of marijuana. Prosecutors said Taylor was a daily marijuana user for 11 years, and admitted that her chronic use of it affected her behavior.
The boy, now 7, was hospitalized for an unknown amount of time after the shooting but is now in the custody of his great-grandfather, Calvin Taylor, who attended Tuesday's hearing with Taylor's mother. Calvin Taylor said in an earlier interview that his great-grandson is thriving, and doing well at a local school that's not part of the Newport News Public Schools system.
"The child is doing fine," Ellenson said Tuesday. "He's progressing."
Zwerner resigned from her job at Richneck after the shooting. In April, she filed a $40 million lawsuit against the Newport News School Board and several school officials. In the complaint, she's alleged that an administrator ignored multiple warnings from staff and students the day of the shooting that the boy was believed to have a gun.
Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
Peter Dujardin, 757-247-4749, pdujardin@dailypress.com
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