The six-year-old student who shot his teacher in the US earlier this year, boasted about the incident saying “I shot [her] dead”, unsealed court documents show.
While being restrained after the shooting at a Virginia school, the boy is said to have admitted “I did it”, adding “I got my mom’s gun last night”.
His teacher, Abigail “Abby” Zwerner - who survived - filed a $40m (£31.4m) lawsuit earlier this year.
The boy has not been charged.
The boy’s mother, however, Deja Taylor, has been charged with felony child neglect and misdemeanour recklessly leaving a loaded firearm as to endanger a child.
In Ms Zwerner’s lawsuit, filed in April, she accuses school officials of gross negligence for ignoring warning signs and argues the defendants knew the child "had a history of random violence
The documents also mention another incident with the same student while he was in kindergarten. A retired teacher told police he started “choking her to the point she could not breathe”.
This boy choked someone and shot someone else before turning 7. Maybe a psychiatric hospital should be his home.
A lot of focus is being justifiably placed on the mom, but the kid’s actions very closely mirror allegations against his father, Malik Ellison.
The [father’s girlfriend] said she backed away to create space, but Ellison followed her, pushed her onto the bed, put his hand around her neck, and threatened to kill her, according to court records.
That attack wasn’t the only time the woman claimed Ellison was violent toward her, court records show. The woman called Newport News police again on Sept. 21, 2021 and told investigators that Ellison held a gun to her head and threatened to kill her, according to court records.
Fucking seriously… This kid has future murderer written all over him… I get that your brain isn’t fully developed yet, but I don’t think kids like him go from “literally a psychopath” to “normal adult”
A normal kid might do something crazy in a fit of rage or emotion, but then regret what they did when they see the fallout from it. This little psycho boasted about it…
but I don’t think kids like him go from “literally a psychopath” to “normal adult”
Not with that attitude they don’t. Do you really think a 6 year old is beyond help?
They need to be removed from the parents, given proper psychiatric help and support, and placed with a loving family that can help them manage whatever issues they have.
I have a feeling that won’t happen though and part of the reason for this is because people believe that small children cannot be helped.Do you really think a 6 year old is beyond help?
The real question here is “are you willing to bet someone’s life on it?”
You’re betting someone’s life on it no matter what.
I’m not willing to give up on someone, especially a child, just because of what might happen.Definitely betting one life vs. maybe betting several. It’s a version of the trolley problem. There isn’t a right answer, unfortunately - though I personally would move the kid to professional full time psychiatric care in a “hope for the best, plan for the worst” sort of thing. Especially since I don’t think kids are inherently more valuable than adults.
I mean, we have 12 years to find out? The kid needs help and care.
There are 6 year olds that are psychopaths and this is likely one of them.
The worst part is treatment is not a guarantee they can be integrated into society.
It’s tragic for everyone involved but it is true, some people are just missing certain wiring, and being placed in a “loving home” can just mean more bodies and a confused 6 year old not understanding why it’s bad that they killed their parents because they got sent to timeout.
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Absolutely. I don’t feel like commenting this whole comment section because this is a hard subject, but “psychopathy” is not a learned trait, and childs can absolutely do some very dark things. I think most people just can’t believe that a human, let alone such a young one, could be so fucking detached and “appear” evil, but yeah, there are humans out there that are like lizards, they just don’t adverse it.
this is likely one of them.
This is wrong, most likely they were a normal baby who got fucked up by his fucked up parents. Is it possible they were a born psychopath? Of course it’s possible, but statistically speaking they were born fine. All we know is a kid with exceptionally shitty parents did something exceptionally shitty. No reason to speculate they were born evil or whatever.
Are kids autistic because of shitty parents? This isn’t about the kid being evil, this is about the high chance, given the kids history, that the child does not have a typical neurological makeup.
This has nothing to do with autism.
He’s in a new school and being raised by his grandparents.
For all intents and purposes, I believe the system believed that Mary Bell could have been helped and her case seemed incredibly sinister.
Damn, that was a trip
I absolutely agree, I didn’t really say he can’t be helped, I was responding to a comment about him belonging in a home where they would help him. It was more about the fact that he will absolutely get worse if left to his parents.
I don’t think anyone thinks a 6 yo can’t be helped. But where’s the funding for this?
We gut anything related to education or healthcare, force people to be parents, and even childless people are struggling to care for themselves.
Free options for care are probably going to be Christian focused, further screwing the kid up.
What is honestly the solution here?
You must be rolling in the dough with your uncanny ability to diagnose mental health issues through a news article.
Fun fact: there’s more than 1 article for this story.
Anyone who’s been paying attention to this series of events will likely conclude similarly.
A normal kid doesn’t see their father try to murder their mother . . .
I might have a lead on any missing pets in the area
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It’s amazing to me how focused these comments are on the child being “evil” and not the environment that created this situation. A child isn’t born believing that shooting their teacher is a viable solution to their problems. At 6 years old you’re barely functional. For this to happen they had to exist in a profoundly fucked up environment with no moral compass and access to a lot of information, presented without good context, far above their age. Everyone responsible for raising this kid should be held responsible.
This kid needs years of therapy and support and a loving caregiver. Before the age of 10 children are incredibly impressionable and still undergoing very basic core development, until the age of 25 people are still in development to some level. There are many years ahead where this child can be saved from themselves. There is no reason to call a 6 year old irredeemable.
It can be both sadly. Some kids are born not right. But will usually be ok with good and professional follow up and loving parents. But there are some kids born without the ability to emphasize with others and that never will get the help they need. And they become terrifying in their teens.
And their adulthood
It’s possible he really has no remorse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder
After the kindergarten incident the child should’ve been given a psychiatric evaluation. It is possible he’s got a “screw loose” but in the vast majority of cases like this you’ll find there’s violence in the home. The foster system sucks ass, but in this case rolling the dice probably would’ve led to a better outcome than leaving him in that home.
The earliest years are where the individual gains their fundamental personality. This kid is toast, no matter what kind of treatment or assistance they receive. They weren’t born this way, but they’re now done for.
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Not sure I fully agree, humans are social animals and learn what behaviors are beneficial for both themselves and the group. You can point to specific things that run counter to this, but that doesn’t change what humans are. But it is a distinction without a difference. Either way it’s the environment the child is in that is eventuating a negative outcome.
None of that conflicts with the comment you replied to. You’re both correct.
Are you outing yourself?
I assure you, even though it is likely that the environment failed them, some kids are just plain evil and will require lifelong support. Parents arent always to blame.
Yeah, but parents who leave loaded guns around where their six-year-olds can have access to them are probably to blame.
Maybe not always, but nearly always. Which begs the question why people are so keen to blame a 6 year old kid here and not the parents? It feels to me like it’s just easier for people to simplify matters by blaming the person involved because the alternative is messy and complicated.
There are exceptions to every rule. Some kids are born evil, although you’re probably right that the parents suck too
True, but we have no idea if this child is a born psychopath or not. We do know they did something extremely depraved and were raised very poorly.
This is why some US Americans want armed teachers ?
To shoot back at 6 year olds ?
They say it’s so teachers can protect themselves and their students (from the consequences of failed gun laws) but really, it’s just because they have to say something – and it can’t be the truth.
At a civilian level, most of them simply don’t care. They’re confident it will never be their kids and they consider a stranger’s children less important than their own easy access to firearms.
But they can’t say that, so they make flowery comments about freedom, defending their family and how they’re the ones keeping America out of the hands of tyrants, even though they staunchly support tyrants and wouldn’t even wear a mask to protect other people, let alone fight and die for them.
On the corporate and political level, there’s good money and easy votes in guns. It’s no different to tobacco, asbestos and everything else they fought to profit from even as it killed people.
But they can’t say that either. So instead, they coordinate what today’s scapegoat is going to be. Computer games? Too many doors? Timid police? Whatever keeps the money flowing.
The important part for all of them is demanding other solutions are tried before gun control. They know they won’t work, but it will buy them more time and the more time they waste, the better.
That’s why their current solution is “free, universal healthcare for everybody in America, including 5 year olds and people who don’t want treatment, done to a standard far beyond even the most cutting edge of medicine, completely and permanently curing people in less time than it takes to buy a gun”.
Which they then block anyway, because it’s important their conditions for supporting gun control are never met.
there’s good money and easy votes in guns.
Despite it’s current reputation, it’s easy to forget how powerful the NRA was in the eighties and nineties. Zero republicans could get on a ballet without the NRA rating seal of approval.
There’s a massive amount of inertia in American politics.
@LarryTheMatador @PoliticalAgitator
Yup. I followed them because of this.
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NRA checks will continue to arrive on schedule and in the agreed upon amount.
It was $8 million a year until 2012, after which it doubled to $16 million a year. I wonder what could have happened to require such a substantial increase in bribes?
Bringing whole new level to “Kindergarten Cop” I don’t think Arny could have predicted this
Maybe because of the tumor?
It’s not a tumor
Eets naht ah toomaaah!
Maybe because of the tumor?
They want armed teachers because the alternative is gun control. They don’t want gun control, so apparently throwing fire on a burning house is now the way to put out fires.
Yes but they seem to be forgetting the very obvious thing that will happen (and has already happened) when you have more guns being brought into schools, even by those you (misguidedly) trust.
For some reason they don’t seem to be able to get that not having guns in or anywhere near a school is the best way not to have shootings at schools.
That article highlights just one obvious problem. Here are others:
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We can’t even rely on our cops to shoot only the people who need to be shot. Now we’re going to trust that teachers will be able to perform better under those stresses - which may include the need to shoot one of their own students - than cops do? How on earth does that track?
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Legal gun owners go on shooting sprees too. Really easy for you when you are already whitelisted to be showing up to school armed.
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A variation on the article I linked: Careless teacher with a gun leaves it in the bathroom and kid finds it and shoots themselves and/or others with it instead of turning it in.
Legal gun owners go on shooting sprees too.
And teachers have to deal with an incredibly stressful situation all day which ever-restrictive Republican education laws in many states make even more stressful. Put guns in the mix and one of them will go postal one day.
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No, no, no, you’ve gotten it all wrong. We need armed teachers to shoot dangerous books.
There’s no way we can ban all of the dangerous books, so we need teachers to shoot them out of the hands of our precious youth.
The intentional shooting itself is all I need to know that the little kid has really significant issues that need to be treated. The fact that he bragged about it isn’t news; he’s six, I’m not expecting him to act maturely about anything.
Yo, how strong does a kindergartner need to be to be able to choke out a fully grown adult? Wild.
How deranged does a kid need to be for the system to keep a very close eye on them? Seriously that kid is probably a psychopath who’s gonna kill more people if nobody prevents him from doing so
That or he’s badly abused/neglected, and is in need of very serious therapy.
My wife’s hometown of like 300 people had a school shooter, and the kid was one of the worst abuse cases I’d ever heard. Tortured, made to live in a closet and eat dog food, shit like that. Ended up shooting the principal while wrestling for the gun (his only victim) and the principal was like the only guy in town who brought the kid food and clothes and stuff (which his parents then “punished” him for receiving). Just an awful situation.
In some ways, this kid acting out so early may save his and others lives, fucked up as it is.
Bigger boy (for his age) and a smaller woman, especially a kid using all his strength, it can definitely happen.
It says she’s retired so she’s probably up there in age. That and probably trying not to hurt him
My 5 year old is very big compared to my 5’1" 105 lbs. Honestly I could totally see a kid his size if they were deranged being able to do some serious damage to someone my size.
What in the hell?
Murica
FrEeDoM
Oh look another shooting that basic safe storage laws could have prevented, without even restricting firearm ownership, but ammosexuals still resist them.
proper gun ownership turns you gay tho
The boy’s mother, however, Deja Taylor, has been charged with felony child neglect and misdemeanour recklessly leaving a loaded firearm as to endanger a child.
It looks like she violated the storage laws.
No, its more like they came up with that as a way to punish someone for this act. As far as im aware, there isnt a law describing how guns need to be sotred to keep them away form kids and if there is, it sure as hell isnt enforced.
How do you enforce this other than punishing it when something happens? The police can’t just go into people’s homes to double check that they have their firearms stored safely. People aren’t going to report themselves.
Why can’t they they? That’s how it works in most other developed nations?
Laws don’t force people to use gun safety protocols, but I think the violation of such laws needs to be a felony (no more guns for you).
Would you not consider the following to be a safe storage law?
https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/18.2-56.2/
§ 18.2-56.2. Allowing access to firearms by children; penalty. A. It shall be unlawful for any person to recklessly leave a loaded, unsecured firearm in such a manner as to endanger the life or limb of any child under the age of fourteen. Any person violating the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.
B. It shall be unlawful for any person knowingly to authorize a child under the age of twelve to use a firearm except when the child is under the supervision of an adult. Any person violating this subsection shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. For purposes of this subsection, “adult” shall mean a parent, guardian, person standing in loco parentis to the child or a person twenty-one years or over who has the permission of the parent, guardian, or person standing in loco parentis to supervise the child in the use of a firearm.
Well that depends on what “unsecured” really means
What. The fuck.
We need to
talk about Kevinpunt this little shitweasel.
So two observations, first how is leaving a loaded gun in reach of a 6 year old not more than a misdemeanor? I don’t even let my kid near a slingshot or pelet gun unsupervised much less anything lethal.
Second, “choking her to the point she could not breath”? How big is this kid that this is even possible? That’s no small feat for a full grown adult if you’re talking bare handed much less a young child.
That the kid at that age even thought that was a thing to do says all too much about the influences on them. We need another Mr. Rogers here…
Second, “choking her to the point she could not breath”? How big is this kid that this is even possible? That’s no small feat for a full grown adult if you’re talking bare handed much less a young child.
I assume it was an old lady because the article mentions it was a retired teacher. Considering the kid has only been alive 6 years, it probably happened the year prior, so if the teacher was able to retire that soon after, they probably were in their 90s or early hundos
That’s possible, to that end the pre-school my youngest attended had a rule of two teachers per class so at any given time one could lead the class and the other watch for troubles since young kids can be volatile at times if they want something right now. Not good if the kid is that misguided to the point of outright violence, but at the same time kids will climb the cubbords sometimes and you need to be able to take them off or catch them if they fall. If the teacher is not physically capable of that then they need an assistant in the room.
That’s exactly the rhetoric that makes it so hard for men to talk about domestic violence.
Confused…? Which part?
I think he’s objecting to “why couldn’t you stop someone smaller and weaker from abusing you?”.
Maybe, but there’s stopping an adult with an actual intent to harm you versus just picking up someone you could probabbly carry under one arm. At some point if you can’t do that well, please don’t get a large dog or such for a pet I guess?
Additionally, the thought was more ‘how can a kid that small even muster the strength to strangle someone to begin with’.
The point is that it’s not about “strength”. And no matter your intend, as long as you picture such events as “whoever is physically stronger wins”, you are destructive.
Why do you think it’s hard for a man to fight back a female partner?
Why do you think it’s hard for a teacher to fight back one of their pupils?
How easy is it for those people to talk about this trauma, if people like you go: “I don’t understand how you can be threatend by someone you can pick up under your arm lmao.”?
So I’m not inclined to get drug off on some distraction with an easily offended sort over the morally correct phrasing or how one should think, but I’ll put it as this.
1: Abuse comes in many forms, not just physical, focusing the notion of keeping it secret and being difficult to talk about on the one most outwardly visible face of it detracts from the larger battles happening in the emotive and mental abuse space.
2: There is a material difference in physical assault perpetuated by an adult or mature child which has a level of malice and intent behind it and that done by a child which, although I’m speculating since it’s not listed, would have been doing this bare handed and without a properly formed mindset to fully comprehend their own actions. A small child at that age likely weighs somewhere under 60 pounds and has hands of relevant size. At some point a person simply needs to be able to fend for themselves or be considered incapable of dealing with a situation, be that in physically resisting or in correcting the behavior of the kid to begin with.
A teacher shouldn’t have to plan for a kid bringing a gun to class, that’s fully on the parents being negligent, but if you work with kids, particularly young ones that haven’t properly learned control of their emotions yet, it should be expected that you’re going to get kicked in the shins here and again and be capable and prepared to deal with that.
See yall next school shooting
Do I have time to eat before?
We need to arm all the teachers. And all the students. And all the guns. And all the bullets: they can carry little baby guns with more guns in them.
Only after every atom in the universe is a gun will we ever be safe from guns.
Screw the kids parents
This sounds like a villain origin story.
50th term abortion
Jeez. When I was a 6yo we used rubber bands for that, and sang songs about it. The next generation was not supposed to take it literally. :(((
