A 6-year-old boy who shot his Virginia elementary school teacher in 2023 curses at police officers in newly released body camera video.
“Where is the weapon?” one officer asks.
“It’s over there,” the child says, cursing at the officer.
“If you want a piece of me, come it all, b—-,” the child says.
The video captures the moments after the first-grader shot Abigail Zwerner at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News on Jan. 6, 2023. The bullet tore through her hand and struck her in the chest, where it still sits.
At a civil trial against the school’s former assistant principal, Ebony Parker, a doctor testified that removing the bullet would carry far more danger than leaving it in place.
Zwerner told the court at the trial that she believed she was dying after the shooting.
“I thought I was on my way to heaven or in heaven,” she said. “But then it all got black.”
Zwerner, who no longer teaches, won $10 million in damages, plus interest, last year. A jury found that Parker ignored warnings that the child had a gun in his backpack. The jury said the shooting could have been avoided and that Parker’s gross negligence led to the incident.
In the video, the child also appears to curse at a different teacher, who is restraining him as police begin processing the scene.
“My mom had that,” the child says, in reference to the gun. “I stole that from my mom.”
At another point, the child screams at the officers.
“Both of y’all want a f—ing piece of me, b—-,” he says.
The teacher holding him says the child still has gun residue on his hands.
The video was initially sealed during Parker’s criminal trial, where she faced eight counts of child neglect. A judge dismissed the case in May, ruling that Parker had not committed a crime under state law.
The judge chose to release the video but ordered the child’s face blurred.
“I don’t care if you call backup,” the child tells police. “I don’t care if I go to jail.”
Police arrested the child’s mother, Deja Taylor, after the shooting on a state charge of felony child neglect and a federal weapons charge. In 2023, a court sentenced her to two years in prison on the child neglect charge and 21 months on the weapons charge.
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