The mother of the 6-year-old Virginia boy who shot his elementary school teacher Abby Zwerner said her son “really liked” the educator – but “felt like he was being ignored” in the days before the incident.
Deja Taylor, who is charged felony child neglect and recklessly leaving a firearm so as to endanger a child, appeared Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” to discuss the case.
“I am, as a parent, obviously willing to take responsibility for him because he can’t take responsibility” for himself,” Taylor told ABC News, adding that her son’s actions can be tied to his ADHD diagnosis.
She described her boy as a “great kid,” but “very energetic” because of the behavioral disorder. “He’s off the wall — doesn’t sit still, ever,” she added.
Taylor said her son “actually really liked” 25-year-old teacher Abby Zwerner and said during the week of the Jan. 6 shooting “he felt like he was being ignored.”
Zwerner has filed a $40 million lawsuit that accuses school officials of repeatedly ignoring warning signs that the youngster had a gun at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News.
The troubled boy had been suspended for smashing the teacher’s cell phone when she reportedly told him to sit down two days before the shooting
“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 News.
“He threw his arms up. He said, ‘Fine.’ And when he threw his arms up, he knocked her phone out of her hand on accident,” she said, adding that she had offered to pay to replace the broken screen protector.
Taylor’s attorney James Ellenson told the news outlet that school officials are ultimately responsible for the incident because they enrolled the boy in first grade prematurely, knowing he had only attended two months of kindergarten and two months of pre-K.
They also knew of his ADHD diagnosis, Ellenson claimed.
“If they believed all of these behaviors to be true, then they should not have allowed him” to enter first grade, he said. “They should’ve put him back into kindergarten, possibly even pre-K, but at the minimum to kindergarten.”
The school had reportedly informed Taylor that she and other family members no longer had to be in the classroom with the boy — after earlier requiring it due to the boy’s behavior challenges.
“He had started medication and he was meeting his goals, academically,” Taylor said.
Her grandfather, Calvin Taylor, who has legal custody of the child, agreed that the boy’s “behavior had changed [for the better] in the classroom” before the shooting.
“He was more attentive, he tried to follow along, he tried to do the coursework,” Calvin Taylor told ABC News. “But in all fairness to the other kids in the class, sometimes it was just too much for him.”
Ellenson said no one knows how the boy got hold of the legally purchase gun, which Taylor said she last saw when it was locked.
Her mental state was fragile and she was suffering from postpartum depression after a series of miscarriages and a weeklong hospitalization, she and the attorney said.
“I just truly would like to apologize that … she [Zwerner] did get hurt. We were actually kind of forming a relationship with me having to be in the classroom. And she is really a bright person,” Taylor said.
A school spokesperson told ABC News it could not comment on issues related to “a student’s educational record.”
A rep for Briana Foster Newton, the school principal at the time of the shooting, did not respond to requests for comment from the outlet. Zwerner’s attorney declined comment.
Meanwhile, attorneys representing the school board have asked a judge to dismiss Zwerner’s lawsuit, claiming she only deserves workers’ compensation because she was injured on the job.
The teacher spent nearly two weeks in the hospital after being shot in the chest and hand.
Taylor faces a bench trial scheduled for Aug. 15 on felony charges of child neglect and a misdemeanor count of recklessly leaving a loaded firearm to endanger a child.
Ellenson has said previously that her gun was secured on a top shelf in her closet and had a trigger lock.
He suggested that a more appropriate sentence for Taylor, who faces up to six years behind bars, would be probation or community service.
Calvin Taylor said the boy attends another school and is receiving therapy.
“Jan. 6 was a terrible day for a lotta people,” he told ABC News. “A terrible day for the teacher, a terrible day for the kids that was in that classroom, a terrible day for my great-grandson, and a terrible day for the community and my other family members and friends.”