In an interview with ABC's Good Morning America on Wednesday, the mother of the 6-year-old Virginia boy who shot his elementary school teacher Abby Zwerner said her son "really liked" his teacher but felt like he was being "ignored" in the days before the shooting.
The boy's mother, Deja Taylor, has been charged with felony child neglect and recklessly leaving out a firearm which endangered a child.
She told ABC News that "as a parent," she is "obviously willing to take responsibility for him because he can’t take responsibility” for himself." She also said that her son's actions may have been due to the fact that he has ADHD. “He’s off the wall — doesn’t sit still, ever,” she said.
She went on to say that 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.”
As the New York Post points out, the boy had been suspended for smashing the teacher’s cell phone two days before the shooting -- an incident his mother says was an "accident."
“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.
Taylor’s attorney James Ellenson claimed that school officials are ultimately responsible for the incident because they allowed the boy to enter the first grade prematurely, knowing he had only two months of kindergarten and two months of pre-K. They also were aware of his ADHD diagnosis, he said.
Later in the interview, Ellenson said that no one knows how the child got hold of the gun. Taylor then apologized to the teacher for what happened.
“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.
Taylor faces a bench trial scheduled for August.
Watch the full Good Morning America at this link.
