‘I don’t care if I go to jail’: Newly released video shows defiant 6-year-old after Virginia school shooting

A 6-year-old boy who shot his Virginia elementary school teacher in 2023 was seen cursing at police officers in a newly released body camera video.

“Where is the gun?” asks an officer.

“It’s over there,” said the child, insulting the policeman.

“If you want a piece of me, come all of it, bitch,” the child said.

The video shows the moments after the shooting of first-grader Abigail Zwerner at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News on Jan. 6, 2023. The bullet tore through her hand before hitting her in the chest, where it remains.

In a civil trial against the school’s former vice principal, a doctor testified that removing the bullet would be far more dangerous than leaving it in place.

Zwerner testified during the trial that she thought she was dying after being shot.

“I thought I was on my way to heaven or heaven,” she said. “But then everything went black.”

Zwerner, who no longer teaches, was awarded $10 million in damages, plus interest, last year after a jury found that former assistant principal Ebony Parker ignored warnings that the child had a gun in his backpack. The jury said the shooting could have been avoided and that the incident was due to gross negligence on the part of Parker.

In the video, the child also appears to swear at another teacher, who restrains him as police begin to analyze the scene.

“My mom had this,” the child said, referring to the gun. “I stole this from my mother.”

At another point, the child shouts at the police.

“You both want a fucking piece of me, bitch,” he said.

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 was charged with eight counts of child neglect. A judge threw out the case in May, ruling that Parker did not commit a crime under state law.

The judge decided to play the video but ordered that the child’s face be blurred.

“I don’t care if you call for backup,” the child told police. “I don’t care if I go to jail.”

The child’s mother, Deja Taylor, was arrested after the shooting on federal child neglect and weapons charges. In 2023, she was sentenced to two years in prison for child neglect and 21 months for the federal charge.