Deja Taylor, the mother of the 6-year-old boy who shot Richneck Elementary School teacher Abby Zwerner, has spoken out about the incident for the first time.
Taylor, whose son is living with neurological difficulties, specifically having an ADHD diagnosis, said her son “actually really liked” Zwerner and felt ignored before deciding to shoot his teacher.
“You know, most children, when they are trying to talk to you, and if you easily just brush them off, or you ask them to sit down, or you’re dealing with something else and you ask them to go and sit down, at 6 [years old] you — in your mind would believe that, ‘Somebody’s not listening to me,’ and you have a tantrum,” Taylor told ABC Newport News, Va.
As previously reported, Zwerner filed a $40 million lawsuit against the former assistant principal, former superintendent, and principal of Richneck Elementary School who was intentionally shot in her classroom by a 6-year-old student.
James Ellenson, who is representing Taylor as her attorney, said the school should definitely be held accountable for the shooting because Taylor’s son, whose ADHD contributed to his actions, his mother said, was prematurely enrolled in first grade after being in kindergarten and pre-K for two months.
“If they believed all of these behaviors to be true, then they should not have allowed him to advance to a higher level,” Ellenson told ABC. “They should’ve put him back into kindergarten, possibly even pre-K, but at the minimum to kindergarten.”
Neither the mother nor the attorney knows how Taylor’s son got his hands on the gun.
Calvin Taylor, the great-grandfather of the boy, and legal gaurdian of him, said he and granddaughter Taylor noticed, prior to the shooting, her son was performing well in school.
“He was more attentive, he tried to follow along, he tried to do the coursework,” Calvin Taylor told ABC. “But in all fairness to the other kids in the class, sometimes it was just too much for him.”
