Boy, 6, boasted about shooting Virginia teacher Abigail Zwerner - BBC

By Chloe Kim

BBC News

The six-year-old student who shot his teacher in the US earlier this year, boasted about the incident saying "I shot [her] dead", unsealed court documents show.

While being restrained after the shooting at a Virginia school, the boy is said to have admitted "I did it", adding "I got my mom's gun last night".

His teacher, Abigail "Abby" Zwerner - who survived - filed a $40m (£31.4m) lawsuit earlier this year.

The boy has not been charged.

The boy's mother, however, Deja Taylor, has been charged with felony child neglect and misdemeanour recklessly leaving a loaded firearm as to endanger a child.

In June, she was also charged with unlawfully using a controlled substance while in possession of a firearm and making a false statement during the purchase of a firearm.

Ms Taylor will be sentenced in October and could face up to 25 years in prison.

Using his mother's gun, the boy shot his first-grade teacher, Ms Zwerner, in the hand and chest on 6 January at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia.

After the shooting, Ms Zwerner told police at hospital that she saw the child standing by his desk when he "pulled a firearm out of his jacket pocket and pointed it" at her, according to the newly released documents.

Before he shot the 9mm handgun, she said, "What are you doing with that?"

The primary teacher has undergone surgery four times.

Amy Korvac, a reading specialist at the school, heard the gun shots and restrained the student until police arrived. It was during this time that the boy allegedly confessed to the shooting, using a profanity to refer to Ms Zwerner.

In an interview with the Washington Post published on Wednesday, Ms Korvac said she went inside the classroom after the shooting, where she found the six-year-old standing next to his desk with his arms crossed and a handgun on the floor next to him.

She said she then took the boy's hand and walked him to the front of the classroom, where she used a phone to call 911.

"While I was holding him, he told me he had gotten his mom's gun the night before and put it in his backpack," Ms Kovac told the paper. "He also told me he only had time to load one bullet."

The court documents also mention another incident with the same student while he was in kindergarten. A retired teacher told police he started "choking her to the point she could not breathe".

In Ms Zwerner's lawsuit, filed in April, she accuses school officials of gross negligence for ignoring warning signs and argues the defendants knew the child "had a history of random violence".

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Boy, 6, boasted about shooting Virginia teacher Abigail Zwerner - BBC

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