Deja Nicole Taylor, the mother of a 6-year-old child who shot his Virginia elementary school teacher, has been indicted on a felony charge of child neglect and a misdemeanor count for recklessness with a loaded firearm.
“Every criminal case is unique in its facts, and these facts support these charges, but our investigation into the shooting continues,” Newport News Commonwealth Attorney Howard Gwynn said in a news release on Monday.
Last Monday, the teacher injured in the violent altercation, Abigail Zwerner, filed a $40 million lawsuit against her school board and former senior administrators at Richneck Elementary citing negligent behavior which contributed to the shooting.
Zwerner was wounded in her left hand and chest due to a ricochet.
On the day of the shooting, “over the course of a few hours, three different times — three times — school administration was warned by concerned teachers and employees that the boy had a gun on him at school and was threatening people. But the administration could not be bothered,” Diane Toscano, a lawyer representing Zwerner, said during the press conference in late January.
The filing explicitly named assistant principal, Ebony Parker, for breaching “her assumed duty” to protect Zwerner “despite multiple reports that a firearm was on school property and likely in possession of a violent individual.”
The school superintendent, George Parker III, as well as Principal Briana Foster Newton, were also named defendants in Zwerner’s filing whom the teacher’s legal team argues were aware of the child’s “history of random violence.”
In early March, Gwynn, the prosecutor leading the investigation in Newport News, Virginia – the jurisdiction where the shooting occurred – opted not to pursue any criminal charges against the minor.
The “prospect that a 6-year-old can stand trial is problematic,” the attorney said during an interview with NBC News at the time.
“Our objective is not just to do something as quickly as possible. Once we analyze all the facts, we will charge any person or persons that we believe we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt committed a crime.”
The lawyer also petitioned the court to impanel a special grand jury to investigate if other potential legal criminal charges were necessary.
“The Special Grand Jury will investigate to determine whether additional charges against additional persons are justified by the facts and the law,” Gwynn added in Monday’s statement. “If the Special Grand Jury determines that additional persons are criminally responsible under the law, it can return additional indictments.”