New information has come out about the alleged comments a 6-year-old boy made after shooting his teacher at a Newport News, Virginia, elementary school in January. According to a search warrant affidavit made public Wednesday, the boy bragged about what he did while reading specialist Amy Kovac restrained him before police could arrive: “I shoot that b—- dead,” he said, believing he had mortally wounded his teacher, Abigail Zwerner.
The unsealed warrant, first reported by local Virginia news outlets, described how Kovac ran into the classroom as terrified students rushed out and pinned the boy to the floor until police arrived.
As Fox News reports:
Their teacher, 25-year-old Abigail Zwerner, also dashed out, bleeding from the hand and upper torso before she collapsed in the front office and was rushed to the hospital. The warrant says Kovac went into the classroom where she found the boy standing by his desk with the gun next to him on the floor.
“I did it,” the boy also said, according to Kovac. “I got my mom’s gun last night.”
Earlier in the day, two students had told Kovac they saw the boy with a gun in his backpack, the warrant says. Kovac and a school administrator are said to have searched the student’s backpack at recess but did not find the firearm inside at that time.
Zwerner’s legal team filed a $40 million lawsuit against the Newport News School Board and certain administrators in April.
Zwerner maintains that she and several other school employees warned the administration about the threat posed by the child before the shooting occurred. She reported several “disciplinary incidents,” demonstrating the student’s fondness for violence and threats of violence.
After the shooting, investigators interviewed the boy’s kindergarten teacher, who reported that he attempted to choke her the year before. Records obtained by police from Child Protective Services didn’t mention that incident, leaving authorities to speculate that Newport News Public Schools decided to keep that information hidden.
The boy has not faced any charges. His mother, Deja Taylor, faces one felony count of child neglect and one misdemeanor count of allowing access to firearms by children.