Array
The mother of a 6-year-old boy who shot his teacher in Virginia pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge of felony child neglect, seven months after her son used her handgun to critically wound the educator in a classroom full of students.
Prosecutors agreed to drop a misdemeanor charge of reckless storage of a firearm against Deja Taylor. As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors said they will not seek a sentence that is longer than state sentencing guidelines, which call for six months in jail or prison.
The crime is punishable by up to five years in prison. A judge will have full discretion when he ultimately decides the length of Taylor’s sentence. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Oct. 27.
The January shooting shocked the nation and roiled this shipbuilding city near the Chesapeake Bay. The case against Taylor is one of three legal efforts seeking accountability, including the teacher’s $40 million lawsuit that accuses the school system of gross negligence for failing to respond aggressively to multiple warnings the child had brought a gun to school that day.
Police said the first grader intentionally shot teacher Abby Zwerner as she sat at a reading table during a lesson.
Zwerner, who was hit in the hand and chest, spent nearly two weeks in the hospital and has endured multiple surgeries.
Moments after the shooting, according to search warrants filed in the case, the child told a reading specialist who restrained him: “I shot that (expletive) dead,” and “I got my mom’s gun last night.”
Police said the student brought the gun to school in his backpack, but it had been unclear exactly how the 6-year-old got the gun.
During Taylor’s plea hearing Tuesday, prosecutor Joshua Jenkins said the boy told authorities he got the gun by climbing onto a drawer to reach the top of a dresser, where the gun was stored in his mother’s purse.
